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THE JAPANESE LETTERS OP 
LAFCADIO HEARN 




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THE JAPANESE LETTEES 

OF 

LAFCADIO HEAEN 

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

ELIZABETH BISLAND 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

<^U miljet^iiiz pvt^^ Cambribge 

1910 



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COPYRIGHT, I9IO, BY ELIZABETH BISLAND WETMORE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published November igio 



©CLA278093 



PREFACE 

Shortly after the death of Lafcadio Hearn, Edmund 
Clarence Stedman said : — 

" Hearn will become in time as much of a romantic 
personality and tradition as Poe now is." 

If this prophecy is to be fulfilled 't is desirable 
that the tradition should be based on truth. 

The Poe legend springs in the main from the im- 
pression conveyed by his first biographer, Griswold, 
and it is now generally accepted that Griswold's un- 
friendly animus so distorted the facts of the poet's 
life as to give of the man an idea both false and in- 
jurious. 

A tradition, however, once set on foot and made 
viable, dies hard. Our poor humanity is ever willing 
to fancy a biographer more impartial and accurate 
when he reveals and analyzes faults, than when he 
dwells on the virtues and nobility of his subject. 
Lombroso, Nordau, and their school, have inclined 
the multitude to believe every man of genius more 
or less morbid and abnormal, and when the ordinary 
''defects of the qualities" of a famous man are inter- 
preted as signs of degeneracy the public is prone to 
feel it is at last getting "The Real John Smith," 
"The Real Robert Robertson." As if there were 
some greater veracity in faultiness than in goodness, 
in weakness than in strength! 



vi PREFACE 

In the preface to "The Life and Letters of Laf- 
cadio Hearn" occasion was taken to say — "the 
intention of such part of the book as is my own is 
to give a history of the circumstances under which a 
great man developed his genius. I have purposely 
ignored all such episodes as seemed impertinent to 
this end, as from my point of view there seems a sort 
of gross curiosity in raking among such details of a 
man's life as he himself would wish ignored. These I 
gladly leave to those who enjoy such labours." 

Others, since that paragraph was published, have 
apparently found pleasure in this squalid industry, 
and lest the public should build upon false sugges- 
tions an unveracious legend concerning a good man 
I have considered it necessary to touch upon and 
explain certain events in Lafcadio Hearn's life. Also 
to restate in brief the facts concerning him. It is 
unfortunate that this should be requisite, but the 
duty of those who were really acquainted with 
Hearn to puncture any evilly blown bubbles of sug- 
gestion and innuendo, cannot rightfully be ignored. 

1. First as to his birth and origin: — The story of 
these, as related by himself, was carefully investi- 
gated at the time of the publication of his "Life and 
Letters." It was confirmed in every detail by means 
of family papers and through information obtained 
directly from his half-sisters, his brother and his 
cousins. Without undue credulity it may be sup- 
posed that he himself and his immediate family 
knew the facts better than some whose entire per- 
sonal acquaintance with Lafcadio Hearn extended 
over the period of exactly five months. 



PREFACE vii 

2. His youth and early influences : — I have been 
personally acquainted with the Hearns for many 
years. They are people of birth and breeding, and up 
to his sixteenth year — the formative period of life — 
Laf cadio Hearn lived in an atmosphere of wealth and 
refinement. That he quarrelled with his guardian 
and left home is not remarkable, as many famous 
and obscure men have done the same thing in the 
heat and inexperience of youth. 

3. As to his sight: — The testimony of his school- 
mates and family is that it was good until his six- 
teenth year, when he injured one eye in playing a 
game. And while the health of the other eye was 
much affected by the strain of incessant study and 
work and he was obliged to use a powerful glass 
when reading, yet his vision, with its aid, was acute 
and accurate for such things as did not require the 
close concentration demanded by print. 

Among the legends is a great deal of fanciful non- 
sense wrapped up in the technical verbiage of the 
specialist, which always daunts and convinces the 
ignorant. But as a fact Lafcadio Hearn's eye 
troubles were not the result of disease, and no more 
affected his character and writing than the deafness 
of one ear would have done. 

4. His relations with women have been treated 
with equal inaccuracy and malice in this mass of ab- 
surd "Hearn legends." From the tone of many of 
these aforementioned "legends" and the press com- 
ments one would suppose that any irregularity in 
the relations of the sexes was something hitherto 
unheard of. To put it simply, no doubt Lafcadio 



viii PREFACE 

Hearn did not lead the life of a Galahad up to the 
time of his marriage. But soon as he had the smallest 
hope of being able to support a family he married a 
lady of rank and high character, and was a devoted 
husband and father to the day of his death. Pro- 
fessor Basil Hall Chamberlain, whose testimony 
will hardly be questioned, declares the Hearn mar- 
riage to have been singularly pure and happy. 

5. There has been much whispering of terrible 
"scandals," but when analyzed by those who know 
the facts and who cling to some shreds of common 
sense these scandals resolve themselves into this: 
"VMien Hearn jBrst went to Cincinnati his poverty was 
so extreme he slept for a time in an abandoned boiler 
in a vacant lot. After he secured work his home was 
a garret room in a cheap boarding-house. It was 
winter, his room un warmed, and his hours, owing to 
the nature of his work, were irregular. The cook in 
this boarding-house was a handsome, kind-hearted 
mulatto girl, who kept his dinner warm, and allowed 
him to sit by her fire when he came in wet and 
chilled. He was not yet twenty; he was fresh from 
England, where the racial prejudices of America 
were unknown and where the sentimentalities of the 
Abolition party about "the images of God in ebony" 
had not been instilled into his mind. He apparently 
drifted into some connection with this girl, and with 
characteristic chivalry felt that he owed her legal 
rights and applied for a license to marry her. This 
was Hearn's own account of the matter, and has 
been confirmed by the testimony of those who were 
best fitted to know whether his statement was true. 



TREFACE ix 

It was a pathetic, high-minded piece of quixotism. 
Would that no man had ever been less tender and 
honest with the women of the African race! 

Hearn's life in New Orleans has been referred to as 
base and gross, but the only specific charge brought 
is that he was allied to a Voodoo priestess. I happen 
to know that this charge rests on the fact that he 
was ordered to see her for the purpose of writing an 
article about her and that he met her exactly once. 
When examined, most of these whispered scandals 
are found to have an equally valuable and accurate 
basis. 

Several times during his various changes of lodg- 
ings in New Orleans Hearn occupied rooms rented to 
him by coloured people. Such lodgings were common 
enough in that day, and were no more unusual or 
scandalous than are lodgings kept by Irish or Ger- 
man people in New York. The same was true of the 
West Indies, and in such lodgings in Martinique he 
fell ill of yellow fever and was nursed with great 
kindness and his rent allowed to remain in arrears 
until he was able to repay it, though he always de- 
clared that no money could discharge the debt of 
gratitude. These are the facts on which are based 
the charges that he "lived with negroes." 

6. Certain portions of these legends were given 
currency in a recent book about Hearn, the author 
of which appears to have accepted them without due 
investigation, or to have lacked the means of verify- 
ing his statements. The writer is perhaps hardly to 
be held responsible for his rather regrettable igno- 
rance of the facts, as his acquaintance with Hearn 



X PREFACE 

was very short-lived. It began through a some- 
what desultory correspondence, and included a visit 
which ended in a serious rupture. The author of the 
book appears to nurse the impression that he "gave 
Lafcadio Hearn a soul." Hearn, however, seems 
never to have been aware of this debt, or else to have 
proved ungrateful, since the acquaintance so soon 
and so abruptly ended was never renewed. 

So brief a friendship would naturally render it 
impossible for the writer of the book to acquire a 
very correct idea of the character and antecedents 
of his subject, and his confusion as to the facts may 
therefore be passed over with proper regret and 
indulgence. 

To sum up the facts of Lafcadio Hearn's life as 
contrasted with these myths : — He was of gentle 
birth and lived amid refined surroundings in his 
early years. He left home at sixteen and after many 
years of poverty and hard work raised himself to the 
position of an honoured teacher in one of the world's 
greatest universities. He married well and happily 
and was a devoted father and husband, and he en- 
riched English literature with valuable and perma- 
nent contributions. 

There is the real story of the man's life. That he 
had some faults and some peculiarities only proves 
him to be like all the rest of us, but those who knew 
him intimately — not for five months but for the 
greater part of his life — remember Lafcadio Hearn 
with profound affection and respect. 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION xv 

LETTERS TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN . . 1 

LETTERS TO W. B. MASON 399 

LETTERS TO MRS. HEARN 439 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Four Generations {'photogravure) . . Frontispiece 
Robert T. Hearn, Great-grandfather 
Daniel J. Hearn, Grandfather 
Charles Bush Hearn, Father of 
Lafcadio Hearn 

Lafcadio Hearn at Sixteen {photogravure) , . xx' 

Crimean War Medals liii 

Received for gallantry by Surgeon Major Charles B. 
Hearn 

Illustration for "The Three Fishers" . . 124 

From a sketch by Hearn, for use with his Japanese 
students 

The Mountain of Skulls 308 

From a sketch by Hearn 

Japan 432 

From a sketch by Hearn 



INTRODUCTION 



INTRODUCTION 



When the biography of Lafcadio Hearn was planned 
— shortly after his death — such a wealth of his 
letters was accumulated, and these so fully and bril- 
liantly revealed the nature of the writer, that the 
work of the memorialist was reduced to little more 
than explaining and arranging the rich material 
ready to hand. 

The reception by the public of this self -told me- 
moir set him at once in the foremost ranks of the 
world's great letter-writers. Since its appearance 
new stores of his correspondence have come to light, 
sufficient to justify adding a third volume to the two 
previously published. 

So unflagging was Hearn's zest, so instinctively 
did he turn to each of his friends a different phase of 
his mind, that these additions to the previous collec- 
tion have none of the quality of those "sweepings'* 
too often put forth to dim a writer's fame after his 
best has been garnered. 

The bulk of these newly discovered letters was 
addressed to Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, to 
whom, more than to any of his correspondents, he 
gave his best and richest efforts. And in them is 
shown perhaps better than anywhere else, the wide 
range of his mental excursions, his insatiable intel- 
lectual curiosity, the dignity and beauty of his char- 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

acter, the gradual deepening and purifying with 
time of the graver aspects of his thought. Also they 
demonstrate how inexhaustible to this "literary 
monk" was the delight and inspiration of intimate 
communion and spiritual fellowship. Their mutual 
interests in all things Japanese permitted Hearn to 
write to Professor Chamberlain with full assurance 
of comprehension and sympathy. It was unneces- 
sary to interrupt the flow of his thought for explana- 
tions to one so familiar with the environment in 
which he moved and felt, and though their opinions 
and convictions varied on many points, Professor 
Chamberlain, he knew, had that fine mental hospi- 
tality capable of welcoming with warm pleasure 
tenets foreign to his own trend of conclusions. 

The greater number of these Chamberlain letters 
were sent from Kumamoto, where Hearn was teach- 
ing in the Government schools and was becoming 
acquainted — much to his own disgust — with the 
newer, occidentalized Japan. He was revising those 
first delighted impressions received in old-world 
Izumo, where the feudal life of the pre-Meiji period 
still lingered, with its honourable sweetness and sim- 
plicities. He was meeting again the hardness of 
modern competitive life, from which he had escaped 
a while in a remote province; and was gradually 
forgetting that all too brief faery episode in which, 
for the only time in his life, he found himself at 
home and at peace. 

One of the intimate charms of letters lies in their 
freedom from any "body of doctrine." Through all 
the more formal literature a man may create runs 



INTRODUCTION 



SIX 



instinctively, and of necessity, a thread of consist- 
ency. Having maintained a certain thesis, the con- 
sciousness of having once assumed an attitude, or 
announced an opinion, constrains the omission of 
any expression of a contradiction of it. Yet the very 
act of announcing and defending a position exhausts 
the impulse momentarily, and a reaction inevitable 
ensues. In these letters this apparent inconsistency 
is frankly displayed. Having written two volumes 
of his first impressions and delights in the land of 
his adoption, one sees the enthusiast stretch himself 
after the long, cramping task, and exclaim with 
whimsical heartiness, "D — n the Japanese!" 

How little he ever anticipated publicity for these 
frank outpourings of his feelings and thoughts is 
proved by just such outbursts. And, no doubt for 
that very reason, it has been through these fluent, 
unbridled expressions of the mutabilities of his 
moods that he has found so much wider and more 
appreciative an audience than he was able to reach 
in his life-time. Those who have come to know the 
richly human nature of the man have turned with 
new appetite to his serious, purposeful works. 

Great letter-writers, like other artists, must needs 
have the original birth gift; but this gift, to ripen to 
complete fruition, requires certain fostering circum- 
stances. Lacking these compelling forces, possessors 
of this charming art let it languish for want of con- 
stant use. Some loneliness of character or of cir- 
cumstance there must be to make it a needed re- 
source. Either shyness or a lack of the power of oral 
expression drives the letter-writer to his pen for the 



XX INTRODUCTION 

expression of his intimate self; or lack of sympa- 
thetic companionship obhges him to send his fancies 
far afield for that echo without which his thoughts 
seem to him as unresonant as "ditties of no tone." 

Madame de Sevigne and Lord Chesterfield were 
both reputed stiff and dry in conversation. Fitz- 
Gerald was exaggeratedly diflSdent. Lamb's family 
sorrows forced him to turn to others for intimate 
intercourse; and the same was true of Thackeray. 
Stevenson's long exile made his pen his best means 
of fellowship. 

All these conditions combined to make of Lafcadio 
Hearn a creator of famous letters. His shyness was 
extreme. His life, from his nineteenth year, was a 
sojourn in foreign lands. Without family ties for 
twenty years, those ties, when formed in middle age, 
bound him to aliens in race and tongue. He never 
mastered Japanese sufficiently to express his thoughts 
freely and completely in the language of his wife and 
children. Though, as with most of the great letter- 
writers, literature was his profession, the writing of 
books is a formal expression : an episode in which the 
artist walks on cothurns, and speaks through a mask 
to a large, dimly realized audience. Intimate com- 
munication, mental companionship, could be had 
only by letters. Through this medium only could he 
find an adequate outlet for the crowding flood of his 
emotions, observations, and reflections. And through 
this vent he let them flow with astonishing fulness 
and intensity. 

For one who wrote with such conscientious labour, 
such almost agonized care, the number and richness 




^^a/ca</io- •^c^'O't'i 



INTRODUCTION 



xa 



of his letters is the more surprising. At times he 
wrote to some one of his correspondents almost 
daily, and at great length. After a day of teaching, 
or of many hours of drudgery at uncongenial jour- 
nalism, he would bend himself to further long hours 
of intense toil at creative work, and at the end of all 
throw off page after page to some friend, describing 
his travels, retailing the touching or amusing inci- 
dents of the life about him, or discussing the books 
recently read; analyzing the condition of public 
affairs (some of his political predictions have been 
curiously verified), the trend of education, the char- 
acters of his associates. Little vignettes of men he 
had known would be sketched in a few lines of 
subtle and conclusive portraiture. Reminiscence of 
past impressions and experiences, philosophic specu- 
lation, daring psychological conjecture, criticism, 
comment, suggestion, were poured out, according to 
his mood, without stint or haste — as only the born 
letter-writer can find the energy and desire to do. 

It has been maliciously suggested that Hearn 
"used his correspondent as a method of exercising 
his own fancy, as a gymnastics in putting his imagi- 
nation through its paces, or for a preliminary 
sketching in of notes to be of possible use in later 
serious work." What is plainly evident is that he 
wrote in the "profuse strains of unpremeditated 
art," and as he wrote there was foreshadowed in 
these flying moments many of the points of serious 
interest occupying his attention, which in time 
fructified in his published work. 

Certainly no one ever so completely revealed 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

every quality of his mind, his character, his modes 
of thought, his opinions, interests, affections, and 
convictions in a correspondence as did Lafcadio 
Hearn. From his letters it would be possible for one 
who had never known him to entirely reconstruct an 
accurate account of his origin, early life, adven- 
tures, tendencies, and the gradual growth of*his 
mental and spiritual life. All that the average indi- 
vidual dissipates in spoken words is here indehbly 
recorded. He painted his own portrait, builded his 
own imperishable monument. The very fulness and 
completeness of the record might, however, easily 
leave him the prey of misinterpretation. Moods of 
discouragement, of listlessness, of bitterness, of 
doubt, of resentment, all find their expression. 
Those black hours of self -chastisement, of acknow- 
ledgement of failure and wrong, through which all 
candid souls must pass when contemplating the 
height of their generous ideals as contrasted with 
the spiritual achievements realized, — which with 
most of us evaporate in silence, — were by Hearn 
set down in black and white. The rebellion of youth 
against the old careful, dry wisdom of the world 
instead of escaping in the froth of boy's talk, was 
crystallized by his pen. Juvenile, unripe criticism 
was thus saved. The ardours and passions, the 
restlessness under middle-aged pudencies which 
young men boastfully exchange, with hot cheeks 
and shining eyes, over their first cigars, were dashed 
down by this lonely lad at midnight in solitary 
lodgings, to be preserved for as long as the world 
remembers his name. All the languors, the curiosi- 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

ties, the wild flights of youthful fancy, all the fa- 
tigues, the disenchantments, the bitternesses of 
middle age, — such as volatilize with others in care- 
less spoken confidence, — were given permanent 
form in his correspondence. It will always be pos- 
sible for the stodgy or the malicious to misconstrue 
these intimate self-revelations. But happily along- 
side of these — to enlighten the wise and the sym- 
pathetic — are recorded as well the humilities, the 
reverence, the enthusiasms of youth; the constant 
growth toward nobility and strength as the years 
fled. And as time passes the ever-flowing deposi- 
tion shows how the young soul sloughed its igno- 
rances and weaknesses, and yearly grew calmer, 
larger, wiser, and tenderer. 

It is very probable that in time these letters will 
come to be considered the greatest, the most valua- 
ble work of Lafcadio Hearn's life. Since in them is 
recorded, in a fashion very rare, very remarkable, a 
Man. They will be valued as one of the great human 
documents, one of the great human portraits of 
literature. Greater than the self-revealment of Rous- 
seau's " Confessions," or Amiel's "Journal," because 
any " Confession " must be limited by a certain self- 
consciousness, a certain sense of literary form and 
continuity. Only in such letters — expressing the 
emotions and interests of the moment, thrown off 
with no sense of continuity, written to so many and 
various correspondents, and covering so long a 
period of time — could have been so artlessly and 
completely expressed a man's inmost, and always 
changing self. They are more interesting too than 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

the self-revelations of either Rousseau or Amiel, 
because recording a so much more lovable, a so 
much stronger character ; depicting a man, despite 
his marked personality, so much nearer in sympathy 
with the average than either of his predecessors. 
No parent can read Hearn's record of his love and 
anxious care for his son without emotion — the 
parental emotion that neither Amiel nor Rousseau 
ever knew. No wife can become familiar with 
Hearn's sacrifices for the happiness and safety of 
his wife, his constant, tender, and reverent refer- 
ences to her, read his little affectionate daily notes, 
when absent, to "Mama San," without respect and 
admiration. No woman can read his letters to a 
Japanese friend (pp. 415-422, Vol. II) without as- 
tonishment at his insight into the hearts of women. 

His letters to his sister — unfortunately absent 
from this collection — are a poignant revelation of 
his long-expressed yearning for the ties of blood — 
those ties worn so carelessly by the general. Though 
seemingly recklessly abandoned by his mother his 
every reference to her is instinct with protective, 
forgiving love. 

His letters to his friends, both men and women, 
display a thousand charming qualities : — modesty, 
affection, sympathy, gaiety, humour, and an unre- 
flecting richness of giving of his mental and spirit- 
ual best, never stinted by the indolence or aridity 
that desiccates so much of human intercourse. 

The very highest notes of his capacity for both 
good and error will probably never see the light. 
Such complete revelations of the innermost quali- 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

ties of a human soul should, perhaps, always be 
spared the cold glare of printed publicity. Yet these 
deep lines "bring up" the self -pain ted portrait into 
the rounded vivid truth, and it is almost possible to 
regret that it is not desirable to give the pages in 
which he lays bare the potentialities of renunciation 
and courage within him, or to print the vitriolic re- 
sentment of which he was capable under a sense of 
injustice and wrong. — Both were very character- 
istic of his temperament — the capacity to sacrifice 
passion for an ideal of beauty and truth — the 
power of concentrated fury at offences over which 
the ordinary man would merely shrug an ironic 
shoulder. 

It is one of the quaintest pranks of that incor- 
rigible Jester, Fate, that this intimate portrait of 
Lafcadio Hearn should have unwittingly been drawn 
with his own pen. Nothing could have been further 
from his intention. Publicity was abhorrent to him 
in all matters relating to his own personality. He 
would have liked to be for the public only a voice 
issuing from the privacy of invisibility. He says 
somewhere, "I should wish to be merely a handful 
of dust in a little earthen pot, hid under the grass 
where no one knows." And had he ever dreamed 
that his letters might become famous they would 
never have been written. It would have seemed in- 
credible to him that he could become a subject for 
myths; that his own voice should have been the one 
to arouse the critical world to open his books, and 
that his personality should so appeal to other men 
that it will probably remain a source of endless con- 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

tention, of ever-fresh interest, as the vivid person- 
alities always do. Those strong peculiarly vital 
natures for which death has no sting — over whom 
the grave has no victory; in even whose ashes "live 
their wonted fires." 

It has been asked by those, not subjected to the 
spell of his personality, in what consisted this com- 
pelling element? And what did he give to the world 
in his completed work which constitutes a claim 
upon its serious attention? 

To endeavour to answer these quite legitimate 
queries is the purpose of this introduction to the 
third volume of his letters. 

To analyze personality is always a difficult task. 
It is a savour that must be tasted, a perfume inhaled, 
a colour seen for one's self. — Neither perfume, 
flavour, nor hue can be adequately conveyed by 
words. — But the two most salient qualities of Laf- 
cadio Hearn's personality may be separated from 
the whole gamut of notes and defined as artistic 
rectitude, and an unusual sensitiveness. 

From the first his calling and election was sure. 
Many find their life's real purpose by accident. 
Their craft is driven by baffling airs along a half 
dozen courses until the wind of destiny fills their 
sails and sets them towards the preordained goal of 
their being, but Hearn seems never to have suffered 
from any uncertainty as to his task as an artificer in 
words. Even his queer, helpless little endeavours at 
business were only undertaken in the hope of buying 
leisure for his real vocation ; — he says in one place, — 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

"The problem of mere daily existence has all my 
life stared me in the face with eyes of iron." He 
was hardly more than a boy when he had formed an 
ideal of using the English language to express the 
warmth and colour of his thoughts, as he felt the 
modern masters of French prose had done in their 
own tongue. Gautier, Flaubert, de Musset, Hugo, 
were his models. The Victorians, with their large, 
careless, unacademic manner, had no charm for 
him. His desire was towards the ornate, the flori- 
ated, the exotic, but he wished to convey his sense 
of it by means exquisite, highly wrought, and per- 
fectly finished. The creators of the French Gothic 
had the same spirit. Images monstrous, bizarre, 
grotesque, fascinated their imagination, but this 
was from no instinct of morbidness; they had the 
joy of the artist in these things; shaping them per- 
fectly, delicately, lovingly, so that their great monu- 
ments had their large majestic lines wreathed with a 
thousand fantasies strange, terrible, and wholly 
beautiful. Hearn says, by the way, of Gothic archi- 
tecture: — "It is the only architecture that is really 
alive. Victor Hugo perceived one phase of it; — not 
the beautiful, but the awful, — the sense it gives 
one of its being the skeleton of some tremendous 
animal. Certainly within it is all bone and tendon, 
jointings, articulations, ribbings, vertebrae, — pro- 
cesses fantastic and innumerable. Without, it is a 
hymn whose strophes rise and burn to heaven as 
flame, — it is a conflagration of aspirement in 
stone." The Japanese, whom he was to know so 
well, had also this sense of the strange and grotesque 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

married with a love of perfection and exquisiteness 
in detail. Pater, speaking of this love of the roman- 
tics for the exotic, the grotesque, says: — "If the 
union of strangeness and beauty, under very diffi- 
cult and complex conditions, be a successful one, if 
the union be entire, then the resultant beauty is 
very exquisite, very attractive. With a passionate 
care for beauty, the romantic spirit refuses to have 
it unless the condition of strangeness first be ful- 
filled. Its desire is for a beauty born of unlikely 
elements, by a profound alchemy, by a difficult 
initiation, by the charm which wrings it even out of 
terrible things. " 

The self -discipline of the artist who begrudges no 
pains for perfection, has grown rare, even in Japan. 
To our hurried age, which clamours for immediate, 
ponderable results, such patience seems wasteful 
and absurd. — (Noguchi speaks of his "spendthrift 
habit of thought and art. ") — But Lafcadio Hearn 
appears never to have doubted of his real purpose. 
Throughout all his self-revelations, through the 
turmoil of the wavering dreams of youth, through 
discouragements, despairs, ill health, through the 
lapse of years, he never lost the vision of his ideal to 
do whatever he did perfectly. That he could count 
upon no recognition in his life-time, that what he 
had laboured upon seemed destined to be forgotten 
and ignored could not alter his intent. Another man 
driven in like manner inexorably by the Spirit had 
cried, "God help me, I can do no other !" . . . 

This concentration, this intensity, this willing pas- 
sionate labour to an end that brought him neither 



mXRODUCTION xxix 

worldly goods (about $500 a year was the average 
income from his writings), nor in his life- time more 
than the slightest modicum of fame, is the vertebra 
of Lafcadio Hearn's character. Upon it all the rest 
of his personality is built. And this integration of 
purpose for an ideal end is so rare that the person- 
ality of which it is a dominant factor cannot be 
ignored. It is the same stuff out of which are made 
great scientists and great saints. To those who can 
see no purpose in giving one's whole life to attain 
artistic excellence in the expression of thought and 
emotion Lafcadio Hearn's personality will convey 
no meaning, in them it will awake no enthusiasm. 
All such feel a certain restlessness and resentment at 
the emotion this quality arouses in others. But 
those capable of being touched and stirred by such a 
nature will brush away the "impertinences" and 
find inspiration and stimulus in the personality of 
Lafcadio Hearn. 

His sensitiveness — of which so much has been 
said — was an essential factor of his artistic con- 
science. What he felt with such extraordinary emo- 
tion, perceived with such clearness and intensity, 
could be adequately expressed only by supreme en- 
deavour. No slovenly, careless methods could at all 
convey the depth and subtilty of such perceptions. 

He was abnormally responsive to the faintest 
wind of beauty. 

Mon coeur est un luth suspendu, 
Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne. 

But those lute strings of his heart, keyed to an 
exquisite pitch, answered to the breathings of life 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

only in the most delicate and intricate harmonies. 
No slurring, no slackness was tolerable to him. 
Nothing but pure tone — what the musicians call 
the just, or perfect temperament — was accepted. 

The labour expended in trying a phrase over and 
over till it could express things seemingly inexpres- 
sible, was almost inconceivable to one who had never 
seen his original working manuscripts. 

A friend wrote to him to express the peculiar 
pleasure awakened by the concluding paragraph of 
the paper on dragon-flies in the volume called 
"Kotto." 

. . . "Then let me hope that the state to which I 
am destined will not be worse than that of a cicada 
or of a dragon-fly: — climbing the cryptomerias to 
clash my tiny cymbals in the sun, or haunting the 
holy silence of lotus pools with a soundless flicker of 
amethyst and gold." He replied that he had written 
and rewritten that conclusion seventeen times be- 
fore he had been able to express to his own satisfac- 
tion the impression in his mind. And in one of his 
letters to Professor Chamberlain he says : — 

"I could not make 150 printed 12mo pages in 
less than four months under very favourable cir- 
cumstances and with the hardest work. Besides I 
was speaking of forced composition. Inspirational 
work, emotional work, is just twenty times harder 
if it can be measured at all. Too much importance 
cannot be attached to the value of emotion, — the 
^kernel,' as you so aptly term it. But this comes 
only as a feeling. To perfectly disengage it {le de- 
gager), develop it, discover its meaning, focus it, is 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

killing work. There is delight in looking at the re- 
sult, but that is obtained only by actually giving 
one's blood for it." . . . 

Noguchi says of Hearn : — 

"Writing was for him no light work, he wrote with 
his life and blood." 

How steeped he became in words, how they grew 
for him to have the quality of actual objects with 
form and colour, he explains in one of his letters — a 
letter which, by the way, is a delightful example of 
his gay intoxication with an idea. A verbal inebria- 
tion more often exhibited in conversation with his 
intimates towards the small hours of the night, 
when the fumes of words mounted to his brain, and 
he bewitched his hearers with the bubbling flow of 
his talk — his shyness momentarily forgotten. 

. . . For me words have colour, form, charac- 
ter: They have faces, ports, manners, gesticula- 
tions; — they have moods, humours, eccentricities: 

— they have tints, tones, personalities. That they 
are unintelligible makes no difference at all. Whether 
you are able to speak to a stranger or not, you can't 
help being impressed by his appearance sometimes, 

— by his dress, — by his air, — by his exotic look. 
He is also unintelligible, but not a whit less inter- 
esting. Nay he is interesting because he is unintel- 
ligible. — I won't cite other writers who have felt 
the same way about African, Chinese, Arabian, 
Hebrew, Tartar, Indian and Basque words, — I 
mean novelists and sketch -writers. 

To such it has been justly observed: — "The 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

readers do not feel as you do about words. They 
can't be supposed to know that you think the letter 
A is blush-crimson, and the letter E pale sky-blue. 
They can't be supposed to know that you think KH 
wears a beard and a turban; that the initial X is a 
mature Greek with wrinkles; — or that ' — NO — ' 
has an innocent, lovable, and childlike aspect." 
All this is true from the critic's standpoint. 
But from ours, — the standpoint of — 

— the Dreamer of Dreams 
To whom what is and what seems 
Is often one and the same, — 

to us the idea is thus : — 

Because people cannot see the colour of words, 
the tints of words, the secret ghostly motions of 
words; — 

Because they cannot hear the whispering of 
words, the rustling of the procession of letters, the 
dream-flutes and dream-drums which are thinly and 
weirdly-played by words; — 

Because they cannot perceive the pouting of 
words, the frowning and fuming of words, the 
weeping, the raging and racketing and rioting of 
words; — 

Because they are insensible to the phosphorescing 
of words, the fragrance of words, the noisomeness of 
words, the tenderness or hardness, the dryness or 
juiciness of words, — the interchange of values in 
the gold, the silver, the brass and the copper of 
words, — 

Is that any reason why we should not try to make 
them hear, to make them see, to make them feel.^ — 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

Surely one who has never heard Wagner, cannot 
appreciate Wagner without study. Why should the 
people not be forcibly introduced to foreign words, 
— as they were introduced to tea and coffee and 
tobacco? 

Unto which the friendly reply is, — "Because 
they won H buy your book, and you won 't make any 
money." 

And I say: — "Surely I have never yet made, and 
never expect to make any money. Neither do I ex- 
pect to write ever for the multitude. I write for 
beloved friends who can see colour in words, can 
smell the perfume in syllables in blossom, can be 
shocked with the fine elfish electricity of words. 
And in the eternal order of things, words will even- 
tually have their rights recognized by the people." 

All this is heresy. But a bad reason, you will 
grant, is better than — &c. 

Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

All of his published works, the whole of his great 
mass of letters is a record of sensitiveness of percep- 
tion of life, of ideas, of the visible and invisible 
world. 

Maimed in his vision while still a lad almost to 
the point of blindness, Hearn struggled the rest of 
his years with myopia, and walked always in terror 
of imminent darkness. Yet the general sense left 
upon the mind by his whole body of work is of 
colour. The brain behind those eyes so near to in- 
competence was a seeing mind, and through an in- 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

efficient medium he perceived, as few men have 
done, every iridescence of his surroundings. Not a 
shimmer or a glory escaped him. From his books 
might be gathered a dehghtful anthology of the 
beauty of tint, of form, of shadow, of line. No love- 
liness was too subtile, too evanescent, too minute, 
to be recognized by those dim and straining 
eyes. 

And in his letters, again and again, some fairness, 
so fine as to go unperceived by the stronger-vis- 
ioned, is commented upon with pleasure. His per- 
ception of the delicate groove in the Japanese eyelid, 
mentioned in one of the letters of this volume, is one 
of those feats of observation which so often startled 
his better-sighted but duller-visioned friends. Again, 
note his "living statues of gold, with blue hair, like 
the Carib half-breeds." 

One with the patient curiosity to follow up these 
revelations of a sort of "second-sight," of delicate 
intensity, throughout his writings, might find almost 
sufficient testimony to prove that only through his 
myopic eyes could one learn wholly to see the com- 
plete beauty of our earth. 

Nor was it alone the things small and near he saw. 
What Mrs. Hearn quaintly calls his "nose-glass" 
was in constant use for immediate objects, and she 
comments upon the extreme quickness of his ob- 
servation. One glance through it appeared to give 
him a thousand details . In his pocket he constantly 
carried a small, but quite powerful folding telescope, 
which also made him intimate with the distance. 
Through it he marked all the aerial glories of tropic 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

days, all the "sweet glamours," the "translucence 
milky and soft" of Japan. Pages 140-141 in the first 
volume of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," show 
how he could see and feel a landscape. 

. . . " Roused thus by these earliest sounds of the 
city's wakening life, I slide open my little Japanese 
paper window to look out upon the morning over a 
soft green cloud of spring foliage rising from the 
river-bounded garden below. Before me, tremu- 
lously mirroring everything upon its farther side, 
glimmers the wide glassy mouth of the Ohashigawa, 
opening into the great Shinji lake, which spreads 
out broadly to the right in a dim grey frame of 
peaks. Just opposite me across the stream, the 
blue-pointed Japanese dwellings have their to all 
closed; they are still shut up like boxes for it is not 
yet day. 

"But oh, the charm of the vision, — those first 
ghostly love colours of a morning steeped in mist 
soft as sleep itself resolved into a visible exhalation ! 
Long reaches of faintly -tinted vapour cloud the far 
lake verge, — long nebulous bands, such as you may 
have seen in old Japanese picture-books, and must 
have deemed only artistic whimsicalities unless you 
had previously looked upon the real phenomena. 
All the bases of the mountain are veiled by them, 
and they stretch athwart the loftier peaks at differ- 
ent heights like immeasurable lengths of gauze . . . 
so that the lake appears larger than it really is, and 
not an actual lake, but a beautiful spectral sea of 
the same tint as the dawn-sky and mixing with it, 
while peak tips rise like islands from the brume . . . 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

an exquisite chaos, ever changing aspect as the 
dehcate fogs rise, slowly, very slowly. 

*' As the sun's yellow rim comes into sight, fine thin 
lines of a warmer tone — spectral violets and opal- 
ines — shoot across the flood, treetops take tender 
fire, and the unpainted fagades of high edifices 
across the water change their wood colour to va- 
poury gold through the delicious haze. 

"Looking sunward up the long Ohashigawa, be- 
yond the many-pillared wooden bridge, one high 
pooped junk, just hoisting sail, seems to me the 
most fantastically beautiful craft I ever saw, — a 
dream of Orient seas, so idealized by the vapour is 
it; the ghost of a junk, but a ghost that catches the 
light as clouds do; a shape of gold mist, seemingly 
semi-diaphanous, and suspended in pale blue light." 

But not by vision alone did he receive his multi- 
tudinous impressions. His writings are full of an 
almost equally surprising sensibility to sounds — to 
voices of frogs, of birds, of insects, of animals, of 
human beings, of winds, and more than all of bells. 
In many places he speaks of these, and in "Kwai- 
dan" he says: — 

"... In the boom of the big bell there is a tone 
which wakens feelings so strangely far away from all 
the nineteenth-century part of me, that the faint 
blind stirrings of them make me afraid. Never do I 
hear the billowing peal but I become aware of a 
stirring and a fluttering in the abyssal part of my 
ghost, — a sensation as of memories struggling to 
reach the light beyond the obscuration of a million 
deaths and births. . . ." 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

There are constant records in his writings of 
odours and perfumes. Of smells of flowers and herbs, 
smells of fruits, smells of flesh, of races, of incense, 
of old books, of all the thousand intimations seized 
upon by keen and delicate olfactories. And he pos- 
sessed an equal tactile susceptibility to the touch of 
waters, of leaves, of air, of stuffs, even of bodies; — 
he remarks upon the coldness of the skins of negroes 
and other tropic peoples as compared with those of 
races of the temperate zone, though the blood of the 
former has a permanently higher temperature. 

This extraordinary percipiency of all the senses 
means, of course, that the mind behind them is of 
such activity as to constantly demand of them their 
highest efforts, and by their help "such a brain can 
daily receive billions of impressions that common 
minds cannot receive in a whole life-time." . . . 

Every quality must have its defects, and the pen- 
alty of high mental and nervous organization is a 
greater capacity for pain, as for pleasure. Every 
door of sense and perception being so wide open it 
was inevitable that the dweller within should be 
peculiarly defenceless against the harsh or inimical 
elements of existence. The natural, inevitable re- 
sult was an exaggerated timidity and shyness, a 
tendency to suspect evil intention where there was 
merely rough good-nature, or, at the worst, careless- 
ness. And being without claws and talons himself 
he fled in horror from those so armed, or became 
the helpless prey of the fanged members of human 
society. This was the reason he so dreaded and dis- 
trusted the Western world with its stern ruthless 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

melee of competitive democracy. This was why he 
found such peace and safety, and a new power of 
expansion in that last survival of the old feudal life 
of Japan at Izumo, with its protected and ordered 
social organization from which the struggle for life 
was in so large a measure eliminated, and the fine 
amenities of daily intercourse were raised to a lovely 
art. 

Had Hearn's life been happy and fortunate no 
doubt this extreme of sensitiveness would have 
gradually adapted itself better to its environment. 
But the cruel experiences of his youth only exacer- 
bated it, until he found himself driven to seek peace 
and safety in solitude; driven to evading even his 
friends. Those who really loved him understood the 
necessity of his being what he was, and realized that 
the very qualities that made him rare and valuable 
required on their part a special patience and deli- 
cate tenderness. They remembered that the bubble 
which mirrors with magic veracity and prismatic 
beauty a whole landscape is destroyed by a rude 
or careless touch. . . . 

Much of the unhappiness of his life was caused by 
his own comprehension of his lack of capacity to fit 
easily into the social organization, for his affections 
were as ardent and keen as his perceptions, and he 
cries with poignant regret and yearning in one of his 
letters : — 

. . . *'No one ever lived who seemed more a 
creature of circumstance than I; I drift with various 
forces in the line of least resistance, resolve to love 
nothing, and love always too much for my own 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

peace of mind, — places, things, and persons, — and 
lo ! presto ! everything is swept away, and becomes a 
dream, Hke hfe itself. Perhaps there will be a great 
awakening; and each will cease to be an Ego: be- 
come an All, and will know the divinity of man by 
seeing, as the veil falls, himself in each and all." 

And again he says : — 

"Perhaps the destiny of all is to be molten by 
that mighty Image-maker, Death, into some great, 
sweet, passionless unity." 

But hopeless of any happy union with the hurry- 
ing, indifferent, rough-fibred world, in which he was 
constantly at fault, constantly stumbling and being 
wounded, he hid himself more and more from it, and 
built himself a castle of silence and solitude where 
no one was admitted. 

Yone Noguchi, the Japanese poet, in his "Appre- 
ciation" of Hearn has understood and explained. 
He says: — 

"He threw the world and people out, and shut 
himself in his own sanctum, as you have to close the 
shojis after you have burned incense to keep its 
odour . . . his only desire was to be left alone with 
his dreams, and the dreams themselves were ghosts, 
under whose spell he wove the silvery threads of the 
ideal, and wrote the books with the strange thrill 
which no one else could ever feel." 

Comparing him to Akinari Uyeda, the Japanese, 
who also sought a shrine of solitude, Noguchi says : — 

"I say that the grey-coloured region of solitude 
was a triumph for them, not a defeat by any means; 
they found life in silence, and a ghost's virtue in 



xl INTRODUCTION 

shadow and whisper. They slowly walked following 
after a beckoning hand of the oldest incense, half a 
vision and half a reality; they placed their single- 
minded confidence on the dream-breast of the 
spirit, and sought their own emancipation." 

It is because the personality of Lafcadio Hearn 
was pitched upon this keen, sustained, and pene- 
trating note that it cannot be considered with in- 
difference. As every object is said to have a musical 
key, to which it will vibrate when that key is struck, 
so every nature has its essential timbre, and can only 
answer to its own fundamental. If a nature be out 
of harmony with such an individuality as Hearn's 
no explanation will bring the two into scale. 

To answer the inquiry as to what the writer gave 
to the world of ideas, as apart from his artistry in 
style, what he has done to give him a claim to the 
serious respect of thinkers, is an easier task than to 
analyze his personality. 

First of all may be offered his eighteen volumes as 
sufficient reply. But eighteen volumes of any man's 
work must contain portions properly negligible, and 
comparatively few have time to sift and weigh it, 
and draw a broad conclusion as to the value and 
permanence of so large a body of achievement. 

The first and perhaps always most dominant 
quality of his work is its innate beauty, its sensuous 
imagery. Though not an American, Hearn ranked 
as an American writer, and formed his style and 
learned his art in this country. And it is precisely in 
those two elements that American literature most 



INTRODUCTION xli 

lacks — in innate beauty and sensuous imagery. 
Poe alone, of all our native writers, has had that 
passion for assonance, for melodious words for their 
own sake, for velvety undertones, for plangent 
phrases, for canorous orismology. American writers 
have almost never been masters in the technique of 
their art. And their audience has scarcely missed it, 
being more interested in life than in literature. Stev- 
enson says that "A taste for the precise, the adroit, 
or the comely in the use of words comes late." But 
Hearn had always a passion for it. He sought un- 
weariedly not only for le mot juste, but also for le 
mot et la pensee belle; loved an alliteration; delighted 
in onomatopoeic phrases — such as in "Chita:" — 

. . . "And interweaving with it all, one continu- 
ous shrilling — keen as the steel speech of a saw — 
the stridulous telegraphy of crickets." 

He wrought with an artist's amorous patience to 
find expression for the splendours of the pageants 
of tropic skies — "the toppling and smouldering 
of cloud-worlds after the enormous conflagrations 
of sunsets, — incandescence ruining into darkness; 
and after it a moving and climbing of stars among 
the blacknesses, — like searching lamps." — 

He sought for a vocal echo of the prodigious 
Voices of the winds and the waters — "the witch- 
call of Storms." "Chita" is but a long sonorous 
sea-hymn. — 

He endeavoured to reproduce in words the fire 
of jewels, the clang of swords, the beauty of women, 
the agonies of love and of death; bringing to our 
literature, always rather dry and thin, the element 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

it lacked of passion, of ardour, of prodigality of 
music and loveliness. 

American literature has always been afraid of 
the sensuous; has suffered nervous discomfort in 
the presence of passion. Its Puritan element has 
never been quite able to disassociate sensuousness 
from sensuality, passion from sexual license, and 
there is a tendency among some of Hearn's critics 
to pinch their lips, shake their heads, and hint at 
the connection between the two; to talk of abnor- 
mality and "decadence," or "sexual preoccupation." 
No charge could be more monstrously unjust. He 
has written ardently of the beauty of women — as in 
"The Making of Tilottama," ( — it may be sub- 
mitted that there is nothing innately immoral in 
woman's beauty — ) but his preoccupation with all 
visible fairness is the most salient character of his 
genius, and a careful study of his books and of his 
great mass of letters will show that he is singularly 
free from all grossness — not once in any word of 
his, written or printed, is found the leer of the ape, 
the repulsive grin of the satyr. He wrote of women 
with even less passion than of light, of sound, of 
colour, of perfume. And he always wrote of them 
with tenderness. In a letter to Osman Edwards 
he says, apropos of Loti's "Madame Chrysan- 
theme:" — 

"There is not much heart in Loti; but there is a 
fine brain ; and there is a nervous system so extraor- 
dinary that it forces imagination back to the con- 
ditions of old Greek life, when men had senses more 
perfect than now. Very possibly this Julian Viaud 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

has in his veins old blood of Magna Grsecia. No 
other literary man living sees and hears and smells 
and thrills so finely as he; we are in presence of a 
being of immeasurably superior organization — 
therefore exceedingly unhappy in this world of the 
nineteenth century. I doubt whether he has ever 
loved, or could love — in our sense. But I think we 
must study him as a creature apart. 

"As for what he says of Japanese women, it is 
perfectly, impeccably accurate so far as it consists 
of observations of sense. Loti's senses can never err 
any more than a film on a photographic plate with 
a sensibility of one hundred. But he keeps to the 
surfaces; his life is of surfaces. Almost in the way 
that some creatures have their skeletons outside of 
themselves instead of inside, so his plexuses of feel- 
ing are. — What the finer nature of the Japanese 
woman is, no man has told. Those who know can- 
not tell: it would be too much like writing of the 
sweetness of one's own sister or mother. One must 
leave it in sacred silence — with a prayer to all the 
gods." 

In another letter to Professor Edwards he says : — 
"This reminds me of Pierre Louys — have you 
not noticed the tendency to cruelty in his work.f^ I 
delight in normal healthy sensualism — or sensu- 
ousness, at least, but that is always ideal in its emo- 
tional life — therefore tender, and therefore partly 
unselfish. The other tendency seems (in modern times 
at least) toward necrophily — Altruism is perhaps a 
test of the question whether anything is artistic in 
the true sense — Does a book, or a picture, or a 



xHv INTRODUCTION 

statue, or music fill you with a generous desire to 
sacrifice self for the sake of an ideal, a principle or 
a person? The first recognition of a girl's beauty 
does this for the average healthy young man. A 
work of art ought to do the same thing — help to 
make us unselfish. The youth wants the girl of 
course, but he is willing to die for her — to cut off 
his hand for her sake. Well, a work of art ought to 
stir the sensuous life in us, the life of desire in a 
healthy way, but ought it not also at the same time 
to make us feel that there are things which it were 
beautiful to die for.^^" 

It is not in this manner — and a hundred passages 
of like tone might be quoted — that the sensualist 
writes of woman. 

As always, the best statement about his own at- 
titude toward the tendency of the school of deca- 
dence has been made by himself — also in letters to 
Professor Edwards: — 

"I fear I am a hopelessly insensible man to the 
decadent movement. I believe that Hugo and Bau- 
delaire and the matchless Gautier exhausted the 
real capacities of language in French poetry — just 
as Rossetti and Swinburne have done in English 
romantic poetry, and that no amount of ingenious 
effort will produce really new effects until the lan- 
guage itself becomes vastly enriched. And I must 
confess that I love lucidity, sharpness, firm, hard 
outline — the style of the 'Emaux et Camees.'" 

But vagueness was the least heinous of the quali- 
ties which aroused his antipathy. He expressed 
himself as "angry and disheartened" with "Poetes 
d'Aujourd'hui," and thus pronounced anathema: — 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

"The new poetry is simply rotten! — morally and 
otherwise. I am not prudish : I still think Gautier's 
'Musee Secret' (in the 'Souvenirs' of Emile Ber- 
gerat) the finest poem of an artistic kind in the 
French or in any other language. But there is in 
it a splendid something entirely absent from the 
new poetry — the joy of life. There is no joy in this 
new world — and scarcely any tenderness : the lan- 
guage is the language of art, but the spirit is of Hol- 
bein and Gothic ages of religious madness. I do not 
know that poetry ought to be joyous, in a general 
way; there is beauty in pain and sorrow. Only, — 
is ugliness or pain, without beauty, a subject worthy 
of poetry .f^ (I am not including subjects of cosmic 
emotion in the question.) *Ionica' — a rare Eng- 
lish example of exquisite grace and loveliness in 
melancholy — contains a dozen little pieces, any 
one of which is worth all the pieces in *Poetes d'Au- 
jourd'hui:' I think it illustrates what I mean. What 
has neither joy nor beauty, nor the power of be- 
stirring any great quality or volume of emotion, any 
cosmic feeling or generous feeling, ought not such 
a matter to be excluded from poetry proper? . . . 

"I re-read every year the best of Anatole France. 
His 'Thais' I have had but a short time; yet I am 
never tired of reading it over and over by fits and 
starts. So, too, with the 'Rotisserie de la Reine Pe- 
dauque' — and the priceless volumes of short stories 
and sketches — I now never buy a book that I can- 
not feel sure of wanting to re-read. That is a test of 
which the value must be relative — must depend 
upon temperament; but I doubt if there be a better. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

There are dangers, I suppose, in the freedom en- 
joyed by French letters. But, after all, I imagine 
that English and American training suppress too 
successfully the life of the senses. Are we not really 
more barbarous than the Latins — at least than 
Italians and French .^^ Surely our language is less 
perfect than theirs — though perhaps stronger to ex- 
press all that relates to force and profundity. What 
Englishman or American could write a book like 
* Thais' or the 'Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque'? 
And yet — happily be it said — no Englishman or 
American could or would write such a thing as ' Aph- 
rodite' or the 'Bilitis' of Louys. 'Thais' is an im- 
mortal book — an ironical psychological study be- 
yond all parallel. 'Aphrodite' and 'Bilitis' are 
crimes. I feel they are. (Why? I think it is be- 
cause they are totally unsuggestive, and written by 
will.) And the same freedom that permits, and ought 
to permit, 'Thais,' when unrestrained by the real 
sense of higher art, produces necessarily ' Bilitis ' or 
'Aphrodite.' There is the ethical difficulty. Taine 
says that the powerful Northern temperament rend- 
ers it impossible for Englishmen to dare what the 
Latin can do with ease, safety, and grace. Probably 
he was right. But what would he have said to the 
publication of 'Bilitis'.'^" 

In one of the letters in this volume he says, — and 
a recent episode makes it curiously apposite, — 

"Why do we feel that a poet like William Watson 
has no right to be a mocker, to say cruel things to 
his fellow man.'* We feel the same in reading Ten- 
nyson's terrible satire on Bulwer-Lytton, and Brown- 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

ing's brutal anger at FitzGerald. I think we regard 
it as we regard an obscene poem by a priest, or in 
other words, a sort of sacrilege to self. We have not 
learned — (as I think we shall some day) — to con- 
fess aloud that the highest poetry is a religion, and 
its world priests the true prophets and teachers. 
But we feel it. Therefore we are shocked and 
pained when these betray any sign of those paltry 
and mean passions above which their art at other 
times lifts us." 

And to another friend he wrote, — speaking of 
the artist, — 

"What is his duty in the external order of things 
to art and to ethics .^^ Is it not to extract the gold 
from the ore, — the rubies and emeralds from the 
rubble.'^ I think it is. What I would pray you to do 
is to put a lily in the mouth of Hell. Then the petals 
of the lily will change into pure light, like those of 
the lotus of Amida Buddha." 

Osman Edwards says of him : — 

"The absence of tenderness could not be atoned 
for by any verbal dexterities in the judgement of 
Lafcadio Hearn. Throughout his own books, like 
inextricable golden threads, the twin emotions of 
joy and tenderness lend meaning and unity to the 
vaguest and driest of themes. There is always a 
hinted kindness, a suggested sympathy in explana- 
tion or allusion, which links his study of impersonal 
facts with warm humanity." 

As his character cleared and crystallized with 
years his love of beauty deepened through the vis- 



xlvili INTRODUCTION 

ible to the invisible. Behind the outward veil he 
perceived "the inward and spiritual grace," of 
which the envelope was but the radiant simulacrum. 
He perceived moral as vividly as he did sensuous 
beauty, and his works are in large part tender chron- 
icles of sympathy with humble virtues ; chronicles of 
pity, of courage, of loyalty, simplicity and kindness. 
Such as "A Street Singer," "The Nun of the Tem- 
ple of Aniida," "Les Porteuses," and many, many 
more. And woven all about these compassionate 
tales of the pains and sorrows, of the goodness and 
bravery of life are endless limnings of bees and ants, 
of frogs and birds, of butterflies and flowers, of lights 
and shadows, of music and dreams — as the early 
Italian painters wound around their pictures, in 
mere exuberance of creation, those lovely garlands 
of green and purple grapes, of sun-burnt pomegran- 
ates, of roses and laurels, of lizards and peacocks. 
Because of all these loving reproductions of little 
humble beauties, and because of the delicacy of his 
method in treating of them there is a frequently ex- 
pressed impression that the scope of his interest was 
limited generally to small, half -negligible things. That 

Lips that blow through bronze can breathe through silver 

is always hard to believe, and because he would re- 
write seventeen times an impression of the jewelled 
play of colour on a dragon-fly's wing one may deduce 
the conclusion that he was therefore incompetent 
to deal with the larger, sterner matters. Out of so 
much that might be quoted to the contrary is chosen 
this extract from the essay on "Dust:" 



INTRODUCTION xlix 

..." Remember, man, thou art but dust — Ah ! 
but dust remember thou hast been Sun, and Sun 
thou shalt become again — Thou hast been Light, 
Life, Love; — and into all these by ceaseless cosmic 
magic thou shalt many times be turned again ! For 
this Cosmic Apparition is more than evolution al- 
ternating with dissolution: it is infinite metemp- 
sychosis; it is perpetual palingenesis. 

"Suns yield up their ghosts of flame; but out of 
their graves new suns rush into being. Corpses of 
worlds pass all to some solar funeral pyre; but out of 
their own ashes they are born again. 

"This earth must die: her seas shall be Saharas. 
But those seas once existed in the Sun; and their 
dead tides, revived by fire, shall pour their thunders 
upon the coasts of another world. Transmigration 
— transmutation : these are not fables. What is 
impossible? Not the dreams of alchemists and poets, 
dross indeed may be changed to gold, the jewel to 
the living eye, the flower into flesh. 

" What is impossible.'^ If seas can pass from sun to 
world, from world to sun again, what of the dust of 
dead selves — dust of memory and thought. Resur- 
rection there is — resurrection more stupendous 
than any dreamed of by Western creeds — Dead 
hearts will live again as surely as dead suns and 
moons — " 

Which demonstrates that his lips could blow 
through bronze too. 

But all this, — his delicate fashionings in the jewels 
and ductile gold of words, his passion and sensuous 



1 INTRODUCTION 

imagery, his discernment of humble goodness, of 
the pathos and beauty of so many unconsidered 
persons and things, his dreams of the great cosmic 
flux of the universe, — are not his only claims upon 
the consideration of thinkers. 

Much has been written about Japan, varying in 
value and point of view. Loti's "Madame Chrysan- 
theme" was one of the first attempts to interpret to 
the West the qualities and characteristics of an al- 
most unknown people which aroused any general 
interest and attention. It was however a record of 
more or less superficial impressions, important be- 
cause of being the work of an artist and a subtle 
impressionist. Professor Percival Lowell's "The 
Soul of the Far East" struck a deeper note because 
the author was a scientist, who was also a man of 
imagination. Despite some assertions to the con- 
trary it was these two books — for the second of 
which Hearn conceived a passionate admiration — 
and some conversations with a friend recently re- 
turned from Japan, which decided his removal to 
that country. At first a mere expedition in search 
of literary material was planned. He had no glim- 
mering of the great work fate had set him to do. In 
fact it is doubtful whether he ever fully realized the 
importance of what he had done; how serious was 
his task, and how adequately he accomplished it. 

It has been many times rather cynically pointed 
out that his first delight and enthusiasm was later 
cooled, and occasionally was subject to violent re- 
actions, — and this it is hinted is a sign of want of 
stability and judgement. One might as reasonably 



INTRODUCTION li 

demand that a lover should remain always at the 
pitch of fervour of the bridal morn. His first book 

— "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" — is a record 
of this first intoxication, and though he grew some- 
times to doubt if it was wholly justified, yet he al- 
ways differentiated between the spirit of the old 
feudal Japan which still lingered in Izumo, and 
which he never ceased to love, and Japan playing 
at jiujutsu with the Occident, grasping at the wea- 
pons of the West to defend herself from its encroach- 
ments, and conquering her enemy by yielding to 
those Western tendencies which he so heartily de- 
tested. Yone Noguchi says of this early work: — 
"It spoke in perfect accord with the sweet glamour 
of old Japan, where the sea of reality and the sky of 
vision melted into one blue eternity," — and in 
speaking of the vanishing in Hearn of that first 
"Horai" (Vision of the Intangible) Noguchi says, 

— with a quaint foreignness, — "His Horai, where 
the shadows of splendour strange and old deep- 
ened under the sunlight, sad like memory, and 
the milky vision hung like an immense spider-web, 
and shivered like a ghost, and the sadness and joy 
of the soul of thousands on thousands of years blended 
into an infinite waste of song, vanished at once 
when he left old Japan in Izumo — the place of his 
love first and last." 

Had this early passion of enthusiasm been all, we 
should have had a beautiful vision poetically re- 
corded, and no more. 

It is difficult now to recall — in the greater diffu- 
sion of knowledge of that so long Hidden Kingdom 



lii INTRODUCTION 

— how entirely ignorant of everything concerning 
Japan were even well-educated Westerners in 1890. 
Nine out of every ten vaguely thought of it as a sort 
of an outlying province of China, and if they re- 
flected upon the matter at all, wondered why Com- 
modore Perry had taken the trouble to force a lot of 
little half -savage "yellow monkeys" to open their 
ports to trade. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera 
"The Mikado" was about the only "document" 
with which the multitude was at all familiar. Loti's 
and Lowell's books had been studied only by those 
avid of the exotic. Miss Bird's travels and Profes- 
sor Chamberlain's Japanese studies had appealed 
mainly to the explorer, the ethnologist, and the 
student of Oriental art. The missionaries had dis- 
seminated the impression that these were a people 
almost entirely without a religion, and the merchants 
trading in their ports declared them without excep- 
tion liars and thieves. There were some more in- 
structed, of course. The artists had begun to study 
their drawings, ceramics, and carvings with the 
keenest delight and interest, and travellers reported 
the country full of enchantment, but the impres- 
sion of the general was as vague and mistaken as has 
been indicated. 

"Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" was the first 
book concerning Japan written with a sympathetic 
endeavour to interpret, from their own point of view, 
those unknown people to the Western world; was 
the first book which attempted to picture with inti- 
mate tenderness the remains of the feudal civiliza- 
tion so recently superseded, without understanding 





tf g 



M 9 






I"' "!*((, 





INTRODUCTION liH 

of which there can be no comprehension of the race, 
and the forces which had moulded it. The book had 
no sensational popularity, but its sufficiently nu- 
merous readers laid it down with an entirely new idea 
of Japan and the Japanese. 

The "Glimpses" was printed in 1895, and every 
year of the following ten saw issued one or more vol- 
umes — twelve in all — devoted in the main to the 
interpretation of Japan to the West. 

Had this work been undertaken with a definite 
design its character would have probably been very 
unlike the form it instinctively assumed, but 
whether it would have been more valuable, have 
been so great an achievement, may be open to 
doubt. 

It was built up almost unconsciously; bit by bit 
— an excursion here, a study there; a passing im- 
pression recorded, investigations as apparently un- 
related as "The Eternal Feminine" — as seen by 
the Japanese — and a study of the poems on frogs. 
It was made up of apparently disconnected pictures 
of the life of the people, their superstitions, their 
witchcraft, their dogs, the children's games, the 
education of the young, their manners, their crimes, 
their agriculture, — seemingly a mass of uncorre- 
lated fragments having no plan or purpose until the 
whole was at last summed up in "Japan: An Attempt 
at an Interpretation." Then it was to be seen that 
these results of fourteen years of seemingly desul- 
tory labour had become perhaps the completest 
record ever made by one man alone of the life of a 
race and a people. The whole stood out a rounded 



Hv INTRODUCTION 

and complete figure; became a reproduction of a 
civilization as remote from us as the life of the 
Greeks three thousand years ago. It is, no doubt, 
hardly yet understood how important so complete 
a presentation of this race is to the sum of our know- 
ledge. What Japan may portend is as yet but dimly 
adumbrated. For this civilization, unlike all others, 
has voluntarily grafted upon its main trunk the 
knowledge and power worked out through ages of 
blood and struggle by other peoples. And the graft 
has flourished beyond credibility, nourished by the 
strong sap of a folk who had stored up an enormous 
vitality in peaceful seclusion, while the evolution of 
that borrowed mechanical and scientific knowledge 
was being achieved at tremendous cost by the races 
from which it was adopted. 

To analyze the completeness and profundity of 
Lafcadio Hearn's study of Japan would require 
more space than is here available. He was the first 
to divine the granitic quality at the core of the Jap- 
anese people, while as yet the outside world saw 
only the silken envelope of their manners. In the 
paper on "Japanese Civilization" in "Kokoro" 
(written fifteen years since) he discerned what he 
described as the fluidity of that civilization, and its 
consequent ability to achieve great results with 
small expenditure for tools and means. An acumen 
since abundantly demonstrated. And of these peo- 
ple, whom ignorant missionaries had described as 
practically without religion, he showed that they, 
more than any of the Occidental peoples, had been 
moulded and shaped almost wholly by their creeds. 



INTRODUCTION Iv 

The strange contradictions to be found in the 
Western civiHzation have been largely the result of 
the fact that its religion for the last two thousand 
years has been an imported, an adopted creed; not 
sprung from the genius of the European race, and 
therefore always a garment in which the wearers 
have moved not entirely at their ease. A people's 
religion being that people's attempt to explain to 
themselves the phenomena of the world in which 
they find themselves, and a code of moral laws 
suited to the needs of their special existence, Hearn 
set himself ardently against all attempts to impose 
foreign creeds upon Japan, which he perceived had 
worked out for herself a cult peculiarly adapted to 
the character of her consciousness. 

Few Europeans have been so fitted to compre- 
hend the fundamental meaning of the Japanese cult 
as Hearn. 

Every thinker appears to have some one master 
thought; some dominant prepossession that for him 
colours all life, which is the key word of the lan- 
guage of his mind. Professor Chamberlain says that 
no one could understand Lafcadio Hearn who did 
not take into account his belief in Ghosts. Na- 
turally Professor Chamberlain does not mean the 
gibbering, clanking spooks of Anne Radcliffe, nor 
the banjo-playing, squeaking, clammy-handed ma- 
terializations of the spiritualists' cabinet. But the 
word "ghosts" appears a thousand times in Hearn's 
books, in endless association with all his thoughts. 
Already, when hardly more than a boy, he begins 
to talk of heredity, — of "the Race-Ghost." Be- 



Ivi INTRODUCTION 

gins puzzling over those blind instincts and tenden- 
cies, those strange impulses, desires, and memories 
that well up from the unknown deeps within us and 
startle by their lack of relation with our outward 
consciousness. Already he begins to ponder over 
what the psychologists now attempt to define as the 
*' subliminal self." 

As long ago as 1882 we find him saying: — 
*'Why these longings for lands in which we shall 
never be.^^ — why this desire for that azure in which 
we cannot soar.^* — Whence our mysterious love for 
the tumultuous deep into whose emerald secrets we 
may never peer .^ . . . Can it be that through count- 
less epochs of the immemorial phylogenesis of man, 

— through all those myriad changes suggested 
by the prenatal evolution of the human heart, — 
through all the slow marvellous transitions from fish 
to mammal, — there have actually persisted im- 
pulses, desires, sensations, whereof the enigma may 
be fully interpreted by some new science only, a 
future science of psychical dysteleology? ..." 

Because of this prepossession — at that time far 
less common to the Occidental mind than it is to-day 

— he found himself at once in sympathy with the 
dreams of Buddha, with the ancestral worship of 
the Shinto faith. To understand him at all it must 
be understood that Lafcadio Hearn was a mystic — 
not a mystic in the ordinary pietistic acceptance, 
but one seeking forever to discern the permanent 
behind the impermanent; the noumena behind the 
phenomena. Straining to touch the ultimate sig- 
nificance of the visible; to know the essence of that 



INTRODUCTION Ivii 

phantasm of beauty by which his soul was so be- 
witched; to lay hold upon the secret cord upon 
which all being is strung. 

Perhaps all mysticism has its origin in just such 
acute hypersensitiveness of the perceptions as was 
his. Phenomena impact upon such senses so acutely 
as to suggest more than the merely obvious ; it hints 
to them of forces more tremendous than the form 
and demonstration of the phenomena. 

In the prescientific period such Sensitives shrank 
from this impact into the protection of asceticism — 
the natural armour against too vivid feeling — and 
sought intellectual satisfaction in conceptions of that 
prodigious force as the emanations of some divine 
super-man whose personality absorbed and blotted 
out their own. A deity to whose will and whose 
dominance they yielded their minds and hearts 
with a passionate loyalty of self-abandonment. 

Hearn came too late for this anthropomorphic 
vision to satisfy his intelligence. Scientific know- 
ledge of the real size of the universe had made it im- 
possible for his imagination to cast upon the deeps 
of space any enlarged shadow of humanity as the 
source of nature; any vast eidolon of man as the 
fount from which the universe had sprung. His 
imagination was too bold to need a personification 
as a necessary form for this force. He could think of 
it as without individuality. The child can hardly 
conceive of thunder other than as the voice or move- 
ment of a mighty being, but the man recognizes it as 
merely enormous vibrations following inevitable 
laws of diacoustics. So this modem mystic sought 



Iviii INTRODUCTION 

for his noumenon in a conception of evolution, in a 
dream of a prodigious systole and diastole of the 
universe through infinite metempsychosis. 

Because of this character of his mind he found in 
Herbert Spencer — who was in this sense the Arch- 
Mystic of science — the terminology of his imagin- 
ings. Because of this Spencer's theories remained 
always to him the ultimate revelation of truth, and 
he resented any doubts of the philosopher's postu- 
lates. 

Hearn's attitude to women, so misinterpreted by 
vulgar minds, had its origin in this mystic sense of 
her being the channel of heredity. In a sense of the 
tenderness of eternal motherhood in her smile, of 
the transmission of a million caresses in her fairness 
— a fairness which had blossomed through the nur- 
turing warmth of endless aspiration toward beauty 
and love. 

It may be suggested, too, that his delight in all 
the little humble forms of life was a part of this 
quality, shared by other mystics, such as he of 
Assisi, who found his universal intimations of di- 
vinity in even his "Little Brothers," the birds; in 
even the stones to whom he preached salvation. 

Because of this trend of his thinking the genius of 
the Oriental faiths was sympathetic to Hearn. His 
belief in the eternal flux of life, the ever reincarnated 
spirit, which to his Western contemporaries had 
seemed the merest fantasy of a dreamer, was in the 
East a matter of course, a conviction self-evident 
and needing no defence. The Orient's cosmic in- 
tuitions, evolved through a hundred centuries of 



INTRODUCTION lix 

infinite spiritual travail — those prodigious intui- 
tions of the essential oneness of the universe, of the 
enormous circle and unbroken continuity of life — 
which we are vaguely beginning to perceive, and 
stumblingly endeavouring to find terminology for, 
his mind leaped forward to grasp and define. 

He says : — 

"Merely by reason of illusion and folly do we 
shrink from the notion of self-instability. For what 
is our individuality? Most certainly it is not in- 
dividuality at all: it is multiplicity incalculable. 
What is the human body.'^ A form built up out of 
billions of living entities, an impermanent agglom- 
eration of individuals called cells. And the human 
soul.? — a composite of quintillions of souls — we 
are each and all infinite compounds of fragments of 
anterior lives — and the universal process that con- 
tinually dissolves and continually constructs per- 
sonality has always been going on, and is even at 
this moment going on in every one of us. What 
being ever had a totally new feehng, an absolutely 
new idea? All our emotions and thoughts and 
wishes, however changing and growing through the 
varying seasons of life, are only compositions and 
recompositions of the sensations and ideas and de- 
sires of other folk, mostly of dead people, — millions 
and billions of dead people — /an individual, — an 
individual soul ! Nay, I am a population — a popu- 
lation unthinkable for multitude, even by groups of 
a thousand millions! Generations of generations I 
am, 8eons of aeons! Countless times the concourse 
now making me has been scattered, and mixed with 



Ix INTRODUCTION 

other scatterings. Of what concern then the next 
disintegration? 

"Perhaps after trilhons of ages of burning in 
different dynasties of suns, the best of me may come 
together again." . . . 

We shall wait long, I fear, before the sidereal 
winds, blowing the dust of worlds round and round 
the long roads of the universe, shall bring together 
again the atoms that made this man. This shy, 
t wild, beautiful spirit that was Lafcadio Hearn; with 
the race-ghost of the Greek in him urging him al- 
ways toward the quest of beauty and truth — min- 
gled with the strain of tho^ mysterious nomads, 
the gypsies, that made of him a wanderer and an 
exile, foreve? seeking some »vague goal, some dream, 
some longing never to be attained. 

Remembering what his' restless, passionate, un- 
happy life was, rather than to accept this doctrine 
of eternal.flux and change, this endless wheel of 
being, one would be wishful for him of that desire 
of his countryman, Cleon, i;he Greek, — 

Wishing thee tvholly where Zeus lives the most 
"" "Within the eventual element of calm.- 



LETTERS TO . ^ 

BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 



THE JAPANESE LETTERS OF 
LAFCADIO HEARN 

I 

LETTERS TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 

Yokohama, April 4, 1890. ' 

Dear Professor, — I know that you are a very- 
busy man; and deem it best to send my personal let- 
ter of introduction by mail, and to ask that you will 
kindly let me hear from you in regard to the time 
most convenient to you for my visit. 

I am more anxious than I could tell you to make a 
good book upon Japan; and the Messrs. Harper are 
very desirous to publish such material as I may be 
able to give them. But otherwise they are not aid- 
ing the venture; and the risks are all my own. 

If it be possible for me to obtain some employment 
in Japan, — such as English tutor in a private fam- 
ily, or any position I might prove capable of filling 
satisfactorily, — I will have no fear of failing in my 
undertaking. I think that until one can learn at 
least the spoken language of a people, and something 
of their emotional nature, one cannot write truth- 
fully concerning them. In the West Indies, I was 
able to give two years' study to the dialects and 



4 XETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

folk-lore of the French Colonies, — and so could pro- 
duce a book which I think would interest you. But 
I have been already long familiar with the general 
character of the old colonial life. In Japan I could 
not hope to do justice to those phases of life I wish 
to study, without several years' sojourn. 

I believe you have read and spoken kindly of my 
little volume, "Some Chinese Ghosts." To one long 
familiar with the life of the Orient, probably the 
book will seem full of misconceptions; but I think 
you will understand from its workmanship that I 
labour sincerely, in the artistic sense, and may be 
capable of better things when I can obtain larger 
knowledge of those topics on which I have hitherto 
only been able to write as an amateur. 

If you can possibly help me in this regard, my 
dear Professor, I think I will be able to more than 
realize any expectations of the Messrs. Harper & 
Brothers. Only those who belong to literature as you 
do, know the weight of the obstacles to sincere work 
that an artist without ample means must struggle 
with, or the gratitude earned by those who aid him 
with opportunities. 

I believe Mr. Ichizo Hattori belongs to the Uni- 
versity. I met him at New Orleans, where he had 
charge of a very interesting Educational Exhibit at 
the Exposition, about which I wrote several articles 
for Harper's periodicals. I think he will have a 
kindly remembrance of me. 

With best regards, believe me, 

Very sincerely, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 5 

Yokohama, April 6, 1890. 

Dear Mr. Chamberlain, — Your kindest letter 
brought me a good deal of encouragement and plea- 
sure. I am sorry to be obliged to tell you, however, 
that (although the British Consul of New York re- 
fused to believe it until he could obtain the personal 
aflSrmation of the Editor of Harper s Magazine) I 
am not an American citizen; and my passport, is- 
sued at New York, establishes my English citizen- 
ship in Japan. 

However, I trust this will not prove an insur- 
mountable obstacle. I would be more than glad of 
being able, in exchange for any service I could ren- 
der in a Japanese family, for example, to have a 
small room in which I could write, and such board as 
they might choose to give — without salary. 1 shall 
be able to earn a fair income from Harper s Maga- 
zine, if I can simply assure living expenses. 

I have a copy of my last book, just published, 
which I will bring you when I have the pleasure of 
an interview. It will give a better idea than I can 
otherwise express of what I should like to attempt 
in Japan. 

The little I have already seen of this marvellous 
country so far surpasses anticipation that I am al- 
most afraid to see more for the moment : impressions 
so multitudinous and so sharply novel come to me 
every day that the mind refuses to digest them. 
\_^verything seems enchanted now. . . . 

Believe me. 

Very gratefully yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



6 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Tokyo, April 9, 1890. 

Dear Professor Chamberlain, — I am writing 
again, not with the idea of causing you any addi- 
tional trouble, but rather with the hope of facilitat- 
ing matters. An English teacher whom I met here, 
has given me some information about Japanese 
schools; and from what I could learn through him, 
I think I should be very glad to serve as English 
teacher in a public school for several years, if desir- 
able. I should not be at all particular as to what 
part of Japan I might be sent, nor for how long a 
period my services might be required. 

I think it best to state my position even before 
hearing from you, — in case of there being any va- 
cancies which I could occupy in the country. If I 
have the chance, I think I shall be able to make my- 
self valuable. The opportunity to teach means the 
opportunity to learn and observe; and this seems 
more important to me every day, as I am beginning 
to understand the difficulty of comprehending Jap- 
anese life, even in any number of years, without 
some knowledge of their language. Your "Hand- 
book of Colloquial Japanese" has not encouraged 
me : I had no idea before seeing it what a task I had 
undertaken. 

Sincerely, 

With best regards, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 11, 1890. 

Dear Professor Chamberlain, — ... The 
school in Kyushu seems a pleasant prospect, — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 7 

being, I suppose, in a remote place; and if the salary 
be sufficient to exist upon, I would prefer it to any- 
thing in Tokyo but for the necessity of waiting so 
many months. This I fear I could not afford to do. 
I have heard of an immediate opening in a private 
school in Tokyo; but the salary is only 50 yen. So 
I am not sure yet which way I shall move; but I 
am quite sure that I shall soon be able to settle down 
to work, and study Japanese — thanks to your sym- 
pathetic kindly efforts. 

I enclose to you the Creole Grammar you wished 
to see. It is the best of the Martinique grammars 
of its kind; but, nevertheless, far from perfect. The 
Grammar of the Mauritian Creole, by Baissac, 
is better arranged; that of the Guyane Creole, by 
Saint Quentin, is also very satisfactory. There 
is a grammar of the Trinidad patois by a coloured 
man named Thomas, full of errors in etymology, 
but otherwise very curious and not without value. 
The Louisiana patois has been written of in a less 
elaborate way by Alfred Mercier. I can obtain 
his study for you, should you care to look at it. 
There are many books — catechisms, etc., in various 
Creole dialects. The "Kreolische Studies" of Dr. 

(I cannot for the moment remember the 

name) of Vienna, is an immense series of studies on 
a great variety of colonial dialects, including, I be- 
lieve, the Batavian and the Boer "Creoles"; but 
these would not, I think, come under a Creole's defi- 
nition of Creole. 

If I can tell you anything you would like to know 
about the Martinique patois, — the only one I am 



8 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

able to speak a little, — I will be glad of being so 
able to interest you. 

Very truly and gratefully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

October 6, 1890. 

Dear Mr. Chamberlain, — I was extremely 
pleased this morning to hear from you that you had 
received the books all right, and that they were new 
to you. I was terribly afraid I had sent you some- 
thing you would not care about. I am also pleased 
to hear you received the copy of " Youma" for Mrs. 
Napier, whose kind words about my work I am very 
grateful for. ... '^ 

I have discovered that at Rakuzan, which is 
about one ri north of here, there is a pottery called 
Rakuzan-yaki, where some remarkable work is 
turned out. I saw the Three Apes of Koshin, Lord 
of Highroads, for example, exquisitely modelled in a 
clay about the colour of this paper. The designs of 
artistic objects made there impressed me very 
much. The Governor of Izumo, Mr. Koteda, who 
invited me to his house, showed me many beautiful 
things which had been made in Izumo of old, deli- 
cious laquer-work. This is no longer made so won- 
derfully, but there are artists in Izumo. I found 
out one in quite a curious way. In a temple-court, 
among several statues of Jizo, I saw one in which the 
God was represented, as he ought to be always, like 
a beautiful Japanese boy, and I enquired of the 
priest who had made it. He gave the address of a 
carpenter. I found the carpenter was a famous wood- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 9 

carver, Arakawa Jinosuke. We have become great 
friends. 

I alraost forgot to tell you that another celebrated 
place near Matsue is Oba, about 2 ri south from the 
city south, where Nominosukune, father of wres- 
tling and wrestlers, has his tomb, — and, I think, a 
shrine. (The weather has been so frightful I could 
not go to see it.) Now Nominosukune is said to have 
been a native of Kizuki, and a member of that 
Senke family to which the "Ikigami" belongs. 

. With best regards and kindest wishes for your 
health, believe me always. 

Yours faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Matsue, May 22, 1891. 

Dear Professor Chamberlain, — ... Just 
at this instant your letter enclosing Mr. Lowell's 
comes to me. As Mr. Lowell's letter touches some 
remarks in my own, I conclude he is in Japan, — 
which is very delightful, as I trust to see him one of 
these days. It gave me no small pleasure to hear a 
kindly word of praise from him. I am not quite sure 
whether the little song to which he refers (" Petits 
amoureux aux plumes," etc.) is Beranger's: I think 
it is, for it rings of the soul of the man; — it came 
into Martinique with Paul Bert's text-books, and 
the radical secularization of the schools. 

What I try to say and think in opposition to the 
terrible inference of the Soul of the Far East, is, I 
know, contrary to my own philosophy (vide Her- 
bert Spencer, " First Principles," Ch. "Dissolution," 



10 LETTERS OF LAECADIO HEARN 

par. 178). The effect of European civilization has 
been "a change from integrated motions to disinte- 
grated motions." But the introduction of Chinese 
civilization must have had a somewhat similar ef- 
fect; — and if Japan can do with Western civiliza- 
tion what she did with Japanese, she would seem 
to afford, not the example of a general law, but a 
magnificent exception thereunto. To do it, would 
require a prodigious vitality, of course, a vitality 
incompatible with the highest intellectual condition 
of a people, perhaps. I am constantly more and 
more impressed with the unspeculative character of 
the Japanese, — so far as I have been able to per- 
ceive their mental tendencies. They do not seem to 
find pleasure in the suggestions of philosophy: — 
they read Herbert Spencer without a suspicion of 
the tremendous ghostly fact behind his whole sys- 
tem; and I have not yet met any one among them 
who finds pleasure in the study of relations of things. 
But, everything considered, there is a charm about 
Japanese life and thought, about their way of tak- 
ing life and enjoying it, so deliciously natural, that 
only to be in its atmosphere a while is like a revela-' 
tion of something we Westerners never suspected. 
What is this.f^ Mr. Lowell can perhaps tell very 
charmingly. His observation in "Noto" that the 
Japanese are the happiest people in the world, is 
superlatively true. It is the old Greek soul again. 
To escape out of Western civilization into Japanese 
life is like escaping from a pressure of ten atmo- 
spheres into a perfectly normal medium. I must also 
confess that the very absence of the Individuality 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 11 

essentially characteristic of the Occident is one of 
the charms of Japanese social life for me: here the 
individual does not strive to expand his own indi- 
viduality at the expense of that of every one else. 
According to a French thinker, that is the great law 
of modern life abroad. Here each can live as quietly 
in the circle of himself as upon a lotos-blossom in the 
Gohuraku: the orbs of existence do not clash and 
squeeze each other out of shape. Now would not 
this be also the condition of life in a perfected hu- 
manity.^ 

I travelled through Japan westward to Noto with 
Mr. Lowell, step by step, — feeling all the plea- 
sures, vexations, and dangers of the trip as acutely 
as if I had been accompanying him in body; sym- 
pathizing with every sensation, but finding the 
greatest pleasure in those delightful little thoughts, 
which sprinkle the whole work through, — snatches 
of intimate conversation. They also, I thought, 
made the particular and unrivalled charm of "Cho- 
son." Such books of travel could not have been 
written by any one a generation ago; they reflect 
the thought of another era, — men now think 
thoughts they never dared to think before. 

If Mr. Lowell comes to Izumo I will show him a 
belt of glass let into my shojis, so as to give one the 
idea, when sitting down, of "being strangely out-of- 
doors;" and when standing up, of "being uncom- 
fortably indoors." There is no canned milk here; 
but there are also scarcely any articles of European 
diet. I have even been wicked enough to discourage 
the local manufacture of bread, by absolutely re- 



12 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

fusing to buy it, to the extreme astonishment of the 
baker. But there is superb lake scenery, which 
would leave memories behind much better than the 
awful recollection of the Onigajo. 

Well, I have written enough to strain your pa- 
tience, for I know your time is more precious than 
mine. 

For the moment, good-bye, with best regards to 
Mr. Lowell, and believe me, 

Ever faithfully yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

MiONOSEKi, August 27, 1891. 

Dear Professor Chamberlain, — Mionoseki 
is about the very most Japanesey town I was ever in. 
The streets are so narrow that I could jump from the 
second story of my hotel into the second story of the 
opposite building. But the vistas are delightfully 
picturesque. The town curves along the verge of a 
semicircular bay, with a demi-line of curiously corru- 
gated volcanic hills behind it, — so that the streets 
are squeezed between this semicircle of hills and the 
water, — which is deep close to shore, so that ves- 
sels can move close to the houses. I take a swim in 
the bay each morning, stepping out from the back- 
door of the hotel from a stone wharf into the sea. 
Sakai, however, is still better for swimming. The 
water at the door of the hotel in Sakai was sixteen 
feet deep and as clear as plateglass. At Sakai it was 
a sort of fjord between Izumo and Hoki, very long 
and narrow, like a river mouth, but very deep, so 
that large vessels can come in. At Mionoseki the bay 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 13 

is nearly the shape of a clamshell. Thje^fijaflTOffacture 
of pretty bamboo baskets of all^e<5!iceivable designs, 
and other bamboo ware, is^tfie meibutsu. 

The Miojinja disap^mted me. It looks nearly 
as fine as the exterjof of the Hinomisaki shrines, but 
interiorly does n<5t bear the shadow of a comparison 
with them. The grounds are however dignified, and 
in the centfe of the main court I saw a bronze lava- 
tory, -7Jike the molten sea of Exodus, — which must 
have/fost many thousands of dollars. The mamori 
wece not interesting. However this is the great place 
f^^ mamori. The Koto-shiro-nushi-no-kami of Mio- 
|((bseki is the Great Deity of the hyakusho-no-jin. He 
/protects their crops. Here are most of those charms 

/ made which feather those "arrows of prayers," I 
' previously described to you, and which the country- 

■ folk buy myriads of to stick all over their fields. 
I am going to send you a specimen. Here also are 
sold magical rice-seeds. Whatever crop you wish 
to grov^, this rice-seed will produce it. Only sow 
the rice and pray. There will arise barley, wheat, 
maize, watermelons, or cabbages, according to the 
heart's desire. 

The picturesqueness of the place enchants me. 
But the popular bathing resort half a mile off — 
Kaisuiyoku — is abominable. Why do the Japanese 
deliberately pick out bathing resorts where the bot- 
tom is all jagged rocks and stones ? — as at Oiso ? 
And why, oh why do they prefer such damnable 

\\ places to smooth velvety beaches of sand ? Is it only 

\because of their rare artistic perception of the beauty 

of stones ? I have been a convert to this religion of 



14 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

stones ; — but stones under water, unseen, sharp- 
edged, brutal, only remind one of the shores of the 
Lake of Blood in the Buddhist Kakemonos. 

More and more watching the happy life of these 
people, I doubt whether our own civilization is mor- 
ally all we believe it is. I cannot help thinking that 
what Kaempfer so long ago said about the Japanese 
holds good to-day, — that *'they far outdo the 
Christians." And perhaps our moralists, with their 
Semitic ideas about original sin, are responsible for 
a very serious misrepresentation when they allege 
that because the Japanese ideas of sexual morals are 
different from our own, they are really much worse. 
Judging from what I have witnessed "behind the 
scenes" of city life abroad, they are much better on 
the whole in practice, though not perhaps in theory. 
Christianity while professing to be a religion of love, 
has always seemed to me in history and practice a 
religion of hate, with its jealous and revengeful 
deity, its long record of religious wars and inquisi- 
tions, and its mutual reproaches between sects of 
being under the curse of eternal perdition. No such 
feeling of religious hate seems to me possible to exist 
in Japan. As the Romans persecuted only religions 
which proved hostile to their government, so Japan 
seems to have never hated any faith which did not 
war upon national integrity and morals. 

What is really the main object of life ? or what 
should be one's main purpose in life ? To succeed in 
money-making by imposing on others, or to waste 
one's existence to win empty praise when one gets 
old, or to simply cultivate one's self as far as possible 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 15 

for the better, and enjoy this existence all one can? 
The last seems to me much the more rational and 
moral, and it seems to be somewhat Japanese. Then 
what a very charming influence upon life has this 
creed of preexistence and transmigration, — with its 
promises for future births, and its fearlessness about 
journeying to the Meido, whither one travels with 
just a little tear or two only, as if bound for a long 
trip abroad, simply a voyage to the West or South, 
somewhat longer than usual. 

The effect of proselytism in Izumo appears to me 
very unfavourable. The converts are few; but they 
retrograde morally and mentally. Two boys con- 
verted here some years ago, became insane. Al- 
though I think such denunciations are cruel and use- 
less in most cases, I could not feel sorry that the 
leading Shinto magazine spoke of these cases as visi- 
tations of the wrath of the Kami : — they will ren- 
der it more diflScult to attempt proselytism upon 
weak-minded or nervous boys. 

But these are mere individual notions. Perhaps 
it is not intended in the eternal order of things that 
any people in the world shall continue to remain 
honest, and simple-hearted, and ingenuous, and 
happy. Perhaps the law of progress means increase 
of misery and wretched development of selfishnesses 
and jealousies and oppression of the many for the 
benefit of the few. Perhaps Schopenhauer is right, 
perhaps everything is irresistibly tending to that 
condition, supposed, I think, by Renan, when the 
universal apprehension of the variety of existence 
should beget the universal will to cease to exist, at a 



16 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

time when the mere volition should suflBce to pro- 
duce instantaneously the desired result. 

Ever faithfully yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. The God of Mionoseki is also the great God 
of sailors here. They pray to him for fair weather. 
There are no hens or chickens here, for the reasons 
already given in a former letter; but there are 
ducks, and ducks' eggs. 

September 4, 1891. 

Dear Professor Chamberlain, — ... I think 
I wrote you before that the fox superstition in Izumo 
has special peculiarities, and is strong enough to af- 
fect the price of real estate to a very large amount. 
■> You know the translation by James of the *' Dis- 
course upon Infinite Vision." Now the most telling 
point of the whole thing to me was the priest's 
appeal to his hearers' superstition about the fox to 
prove his metaphysical argument, and the immedi- 
ate success of that appeal. Even among the mod- 
ernly educated here, the belief in the three kinds of 
foxes prevails to a large extent. Just as a student 
once wrote for me in an English comparison: — *'It 
is hard to say if these stories of foxes are true. But it 
is hard to say that they are not true." 

What you say about Mr. Lowell's being probably 
less intimate with the common people than I now 
am, is, I think, true. Certainly so large a personality 
as his would find it extremely diflScult — probably 
painful — to adopt Japanese life without reserves, 
its costumes, its diet, its life upon the floor, its inter- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 17 

minable small etiquette, its everlasting round of 
interviews with people who have nothing to say but 
a few happy words, its Matsuri customs and house- 
hold formalities. He has what the French would call 
une envergure trop vaste pour ga; and for so penetrat- 
ing and finely trained an intellect, the necessary 
sacrifice of one's original self would be mere waste. 
Still, I think it is only by this way, in the course of 
years, that I can get at the Kokoro of the common 
people, — which is my whole aim, — the religious 
and emotional home life. What I have seen of the 
educated modernized Japanese does not strike me as 
worth studying for literary purposes. They seem to 
me like a soft reflection of Latin types, without the 
Latin force and brilliancy and passion — somewhat 
as in dreams the memory of people we have known 
become smilingly aerial and imponderable. 

Your illustration about homeopathy is superb, — 
a little severe, but I think it is impossible to state 
the whole weak side of anything without some forci- 
ble severity. But the ultimate tendency would thus 
be toward a second Ryubu-Shinto, — would it not? 
I must confess I would sacrifice much, if I had any- 
thing worth sacrificing, to see a pure strong revival 
of Buddhism. But the Buddhists seem to have no 
great men now, no forces: — no possibility of an- 
other Nichiren, is there.'* I fear it cannot come: this 
hoped-for revival, through native sources alone; the 
Buddhist scholars are lukewarm souls — mere book- 
worms. But it might come through the influence of 
the Western higher philosophy, indirectly. To make 
the Japanese people simply irreligious, would de- 



18 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

stroy everything beautiful in their Hfe, and nothing 
seems to me so admirably suited to that gentle life 
as the faith of Buddhism. The sight of a superb 
Japanese iron-clad at Mionoseki the other day, filled 
me with regret. That splendid monster appeared as 
an omen of some future so much more dismal and 
artificial than the present. . . • 

September 10, 1891. 

Dear Professor Chamberlain, — I have re- 
turned from Kakaura and the neighbouring caves 
— one of which is (by reason of its legends largely) 
the weirdest place I ever saw. ... 

Women boatmen took us to Kaka. After leaving 
the tiny bay of Mitsu-ura, the boat follows the coast 
to the right. An awful, black, iron-bound coast, 
where the surf is never still, — eccentric, jagged, 
ravined, upheaved, breached, turned upside down in 
places; strata-lines at all conceivable angles from 
/ to \ , and vice versa. After about two hours' 
rowing, reached a pretty bay, quite large, in a 
corner of which is Kaka. Passed the bay and made 
for the caves. There are two, the old and the new. 
The new is the further. We went there first. A 
superb sea-cave, or caves; for there are three open- 
ings. The water is deep and clear. One of the wo- 
men took a stone and rapped on the bow as we 
entered. I wanted to take a swim, but was assured 
the Kami would be displeased. It would be "certain 
death." These caves, although sacred to the Kami, 
contain a rock from which milk is said to drip for the 
ghosts of Jizo's pets to drink. From here we made 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 19 

our way back to the alleged " older cave." Here was 
the weirdness. This cave is doubled and has a floor 
of solid rock. Thousands upon thousands of stone- 
piles cover it, heaped up at night, 't is said, by the 
ghosts of little children coming to worship the 
statues of Jizo. I saw tiny footprints a few inches 
long in the sand, said to be the prints of the feet of 
the little ghosts. Shinto and Buddhism join hands 
here. There are several statues of Jizo, before each 
of which is a small torii and a pair of gohei. 

Thence to Kakaura, a delicious sleepy little 
port. The prettiest, gentlest, sweetest population I 
ever saw. All the boys looked like Jizo and all the 
girls like Kwannon. I would like to buy Kakaura and 
put it in my toko. 

I think Jizo is far the most interesting and popu- cz t> 
lar deity in Japan. All the tenderest poetry of Bud- % 
dhism is his aureole. Never have I travelled on a 
road or passed a hamlet where he was not. Even in 
Kitzuki he prevails. I have written hundreds of 
pages already about him. I imagine that he will be 
the last of the Buddhist divinities to pass into the 
Nirvana of oblivion, supposing that Buddhism 
itself must pass away. 

But I am sorry that I cannot send you any mam- 
ori. There is no temple or to or anything near the 
caves, — only the awful goblin coast and the awful 
sea, Hotoke-no-umi. There are also plenty of 
sharks. 

Just as in the West Indies, so in Japan I find that 
there are extraordinary physical differences between 
the populations of villages only a few miles apart. 



tf.^' 



^ 



20 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Some physical type becomes dominant when the 
population is isolated by absence of good roads, by 
mountains, by those local conditions which deter- 
mine the fate of communities. 

Very truly, 
- Lafcadio Hearn. 

February 12, 1892. 

Dear friend Chamberlain, — What a delight it 
was to get your charming Manila letter; and how 
I envied you : — not only those things which you 
liked, but also even those things which you did not 
like; the rich, divine, moist, life-sapping and life-giv- 
ing heat of the tropics, and the exquisite romance 
of rummaging in old monastic libraries; — and (but 
will you please forgive me for saying so?) the Span- 
ish dance-music. There is an estudiantina serenade, 
played only upon mandolines and flutes, which I 
used to hear on tropical nights, but of which I never 
learned the name; and sometimes I dream of it, 
and wake up with such regret that I dare not sleep 
again ; until I tire myself out reading or writing. I 
wonder why. Is it the melody only, — sweet as a 
cooing of doves, — or is it the vision of palms under 
the southern cross, and thoughts of purple sea, and 
odors of orange and lemon flowers? I can't quite 
decide; perhaps if you heard a Spanish melody in 
London, or (dare I say it?) a Japanese geisha-song, 
the memories evoked by it might seem so pleasant 
that you would forgive the notes. The reason I 
can't decide, however, is that the rhythm of an 
African drum-bamboula skilfully played, delights 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 21 

me in a kindred way; and of course that is not 
music, though it is certainly capable of expressing 
certain animal emotions; — excitements and frenzies 
that are contagious. And you will be horrified to 
hear that I cannot delight in Wagner and intellec- 
tual music, not having any cultivated musical sense. 
I am told it must be acquired slowly, by study and 
opportunity. As I have said so much, I want to say 
something more. I cannot like the professional 
music of the Japanese, — that is, vocal, — as I like 
the chants of the peasantry, the occasional queer 
bursts of quaverings and long weird plaintive tones 
breaking here and there into fractions of notes. 
Some of these seem to me very pretty, and savagely 
natural, like the chant of a semi, or a wild bird. . . . 
From what you tell me about Manila, I conceive 
the social life must be much like that of the Latin 
West Indies; the same dining hours, the same 
amusements, the same incapacity for intellectual 
pursuits forced by the tropical climate. I could only 
work in such heat from 5 a. m. till 11 ; for the rest of 
the day, to work was to risk one's life. But that is 
not the worst. The worst is the development of mor- 
bid nervous sensibility to material impressions, and 
absolute loss of thinking power, accompanied by 
numbing or clouding of memory. (And yet — I love 
the tropics.) As for the half-breeds of Manila, if 
they made no impression, no strong physical impres- 
sion of attractiveness, I would doubt if the race 
would compare with the West Indian half-breeds in 
physique. The ungainliness of the pure whites would, 
I think, be the result of the same convent training 



22 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

which makes Creole women so clumsy at a certain 
time of life. By the way, the use of the word "con- 
vent," you call attention to, is, I think, a very old 
one in Latin countries, in the signification of mon- 
astery. I think you will find the word so used in 
nearly all the old traditions of the Middle Ages, — 
such as the legends of Francis of Assisi, and our 
poets follow suit; — for instance, Longfellow in 
"The Golden Legend," and the "Legend Beautiful," 
and Rossetti, Tennyson, etc. The distinction be- 
tween "convent" as a nunnery, and "monastery" 
is, I think, only a popular English one. The former 
word signifies really the house of a religious order 
of either sex. 

I have never read Valera, — indeed, until you 
wrote about him, I had imagined the name to be a 
French pseudonym for one who wanted to call at- 
tention to his stories of Spanish life. (You know he 
is much read in the French version, — at least I 
often saw notices of his books in French papers; but 
I thought they were books by a Frenchman.) But, 
speaking of books, if you have not read Rudyard 
Kipling at his best, I think you will have a treat in 
"Life's Handicap," especially. There is a prodigious 
compressed force in the man's style that reminds me 
at times of the style of the Norse writers, like Bjorn- 
son. A great test of a book is, "Can you read it 
twice ? " Certainly one cannot read Zola twice, — 
perhaps not even Maupassant, though so wondrous 
a story-teller is Maupassant. But you can read the 
short stories of "Life's Handicap" several times 
over, always with the same charm. I can also recom- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 23 

mend "Wee Willie Winkie," "The Gadsbys," " Sol- 
diers Three," " Under the Deodars," "Plain Tales 
from the Hills," "The Light that Failed." The 
Macmillan editions are much fuller and finer than 
the Indian prints. 

Though it pleased me so much to hear that Japan 
seemed more beautiful as you recede further from 
it ( — and, indeed, all that I love in the tropics is 
Nature and that in man which reflects tropical Na- 
ture's fine side), — still, did not Spanish politeness 
suggest to you with new sudden force the faint 
resemblance of the Japanese to the Latins .^^ It will 
be, however, in England, I fancy, that you will en- 
joy Japan best from a distance. There the con- 
trasts will focus most sharply. 

My next Japanese volume (No. 2) must consist, 
if possible, of story-matter, or sketches construct- 
ively resembling stories. But I am in despair about 
conversational work. In a story, the foreign idiom, 
however queer, must remain the foreign idiom in 
English; otherwise one simply makes Japanese talk 
and think English. Even Mr. Dening, who ought to 
know artistically better, does this. Hepburn's Dic- 
tionary makes no attempt at etymology, — only 
an English rendering is given. What tremendous 
work, however, to give the morphology of Japanese 
words. Yet how essential to a clear comprehension 
of their artistic use by any one, not a scholar. . . . 

With best regards and earnest wishes for a plea- 
sant English summer, believe me. 

Ever faithfully yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



24 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

December 9, 1892. 

Dear Professor, — How glad it made me to see 
your writing again ! — and to find myself so kindly 
remembered. 

How supremely we are at one on the subject of 
Gothic architecture. It is in his judgment of it that 
I think Taine's great artistic weakness lies. He fol- 
lows Brunelleschi ; — considers durability, architec- 
tural interproportion and balancing, — shows aston- 
ishing insensibility to meaning. Perhaps because he 
is no poet. It is the only architecture that is really 
alive. Victor Hugo perceived one phase of it; — not 
the beautiful, but the awful, — the sense it gives one 
of being in the skeleton of some tremendous animal. 
Certainly within it is all bone and tendon, jointings, 
articulations, ribbings, vertebrae, — processes fan- 
tastic and innumerable. Without it is a hymn whose 
strophes rise and burn to heaven as flame, — it is a 
conflagration of aspirement in stone. How I wish I 
could have seen Cologne. That is one of my hopes 
and dreams. The style is severe; but what must be 
the impression of a choir 160 feet high, and towers 
over 500. I am all pagan; but Greek architecture, 
I feel, is only stone. Gothic is soul, — or better 
Spirit, using the sharp-angled flame-word. 

Your letter from Manila bewitched me. I shall 
hope and scheme to go there some day, — at least 
for a winter. How I should enjoy the native life, I 
don't know; the Malay, or Tagal, seems rather im- 
penetrable ; but as to the colonial life I think I could 
make some literary finds. . . . 
, I have been interested in the worship of Needles, 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 25 

to which Mochi are offered, and in the discovery of 
a curious Izumo household ceremony anciently prac- 
tised before every Kamidama on a certain Matsuri 
for the expulsion of foreigners from Japan, — and 
in the history of the Goblin of the Snow, — and in 
the discovery of a belief in 9 (nine) souls. Why nine? 
And Mason will tell you about my notes on prayers 
for the Souls of animals, and other matters. 

Meanwhile I have read Batchelor's book on the 
Ainu which suggested the following observations: 
(l) I suspect a connection between the Japanese 
gohei and the Ainu inao. 

(2) I feel almost certain that Batchelor is wrong 
and Miss Bird right about the religion of the Ainu. 
Thelaw of religious evolution, now clearly laid down, 
seems to me to preclude the possibility of a natural 
monotheistic conception on the part of a primitive 
race. The Ainu may now profess a belief in one God, 
"Creator of heaven and earth;" but is that belief 
not a modern imported one^ I feel sure almost that 
it is. 

About myself, I am all right for Kumamoto for 
another year, I suppose, — perhaps as long as I like. 
... I'll write more about my own affairs another 
time. 

Yours ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Kumamoto, December 12, 1892. 

Dear Professor, — "In summer the heat is so 
hot that we can accomplish nothing; and in winter 
the cold is simply impossible to bear." 



26 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

The above extract from a composition I have just 
corrected, expresses correctly the local opinion of 
this climate, — all of which is introductory to a con- 
fession. You may recollect my former confession 
about returning to the flesh-pots of Egypt. (And I 
have never been able to go back to Japanese diet, 
except while travelling.) But I did without fire for 
two winters; for a hibachi is not fire, you know; it is 
only a ghost, or a pipe-light, — and a Kotatsu 
requires a prolonged discipline of the spinal muscles, 
which I lack. And this winter, in spite of my love 
and enthusiasm for things Japanese, I find myself 
obliged to hire many carpenters to fix my study, — 
putting in glass shoji, and erecting a stove. Because 
the cold "is simply impossible to bear." And I 
have changed my residence to "Tsuboi, Nishihori- 
bata 35," — obtaining a pretty house, with a pretty 
garden, — surrounded by cemeteries and images of 
Gods. 

I wonder if you ever heard of a strange old super- 
stition that a miko, or even the wife of a Kannushi, 
cannot rest in the grave, but is eaten by a goblin 
wolf after death. The goblin comes to the grave and 
howls, and the corpse then rises up to be devoured, 
just as Southey's Old Woman of Berkeley gets up 
when the devil calls. It is a superstition of the Izumo 
peasantry. Please don't mention my name in con- 
nection with it if you happen to speak of it to any- 
body else. I can't afford to write about many things 
in connection with rustic Shinto, which is a totally 
different thing from the majestic and dignified 
Izumo Taisha. The peasant's Kannushi does queer 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 27 

things; — primitive things, — extraordinary things. 
But why should the peasants have so ghastly a fancy 
about a faith which they respect most profoundly 
otherwise. The origin of such a hideous story cannot 
be in Shinto itself, which has always respected wo- 
man. And it cannot be naturally in Buddhism which 
vindicates the holiness of womanhood so magnifi- 
cently in the Saddharma Pundarika, — a passage 
finer by far than that of Christ and the adulteress, 
not in its humanity, but in its spirituality. Perhaps 
there survives an older belief than any form of 
either religion we know of, attaching an idea of evil 
to the assumption of any sacerdotal function by 
women, — an idea going back to that remoter age 
in which a priestess could exist only as a witch? 
What do you think .^^ 

I hope Mason has preserved for you the pretty 
lines of Rudyard Kipling about the Daibutsu at 
Kamakura. I enjoy him, — not the poetry of the 
effort, but the prose of it. It is delicious. Alas! I 
had written my commonplace stuff about the Dai- 
butsu long ago; — long before. Would I could atone 
for it now ! But then Kipling is a giant in all things 
compared to me. Read the Queen's words on pp. 
250-1-2 of the "Naulahka." I think they will bring 
tears. Immense force without the least appearance 
of an attempt or wish to effect. I despair when I 
read that man's work. 

"Calm as a deep still water," says an ancient 
Sutra of the Teacher. And there at Kamakura He is 
even so — deep, still, and luminous as the ether. . . . 
To lie about the beautiful is to lie about the Infinite 



28 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Goodness and the heart of Life, — and there is for- 
giveness never for that sin. 

But I won't tire you any more now. 

Good-bye. 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

KuMAMOTO, December 21, 1892. 

Dear Professor, — "I take my pen in hand " to 
write of my new home, and matters in connection 
therewith. The house is pretty, and it has a land- 
scape garden, — not so quaintly beautiful as that in 
Matsue, but quite nice with artificial hills, pines 
trimmed strata-fashion, and an amazing multitude 
of stones. There are glass bells tinkling at the eaves; 
and there are monkeys painted in the watercloset. 
Fancy a real monkey in a watercloset. This alone 
strikes me as an incongruous and unpleasantly sug- 
gestive decoration. The stove works well, and I 
could make you comfortable in my glass-box of a 
study. 

But in order to go to Nishihoribata, we had to 
move in a northerly direction, thereby offending 
Kojin, who hates the north, and all who move that 
way. (Oh, Kojin, — if you knew how far south 
I should like to go, we would be wonderful friends.) 
Kojin seems to have no image; in Izumo he is always 
a tree. He is no relative to Koshin, and old girl's 
dolls and boy's dolls are given to him instead of 
being thrown out. But the origin of him I can't 
make out. I thought he was Shinto, but he stands in 
Buddhist courtyards. Well, in order to placate him 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 29 

we had to have rites performed by a Buddhist priest. 
The prayers were not addressed to Kojin at all, but 
to Shoten. Who is Shoten, I can't make out, further 
than that 't is Shoten who is to preserve us from the 
wrath of Kojin. Mamori were given to us; and I ate 
some rice blessed by the Bonsan. This is, perhaps, 
to keep Kojin from disturbing my inwards. (May 
the Tathagata pardon me for speaking thus plainly 
about gods whom I cannot understand.) The line of 
demarcation between Shinto and Buddhist deities is 
as difficult to define as that between the vegetable 
and animal world, or between certain contested 
varieties of the human race; and the more I find out, 
the less sure I am of anything about them. 

A paragraph in the mail about Daikoku reminds 
me of something I wanted to tell you long ago. That 
the Rat should figure as a retainer of Daikoku, and 
in the neighbourhood of his rice-bales, naturally 
seemed queer to many familiar with the picture on 
the bank-bills. But in Izumo where Daikoku is 
Oho-kumi-nushi-no-kami, the mystery is not. There 
the rat is the Mouse of the Kojiki (page 73) who 
whispered, — "The inside is hollow, hollow." In 
your note on the same page I find that the word 
might be translated either "rat" or "mouse." This 
story is among the people. I got it from no priestly 
authority, — and it seems to explain the relation- 
ship perfectly well. 

And I wish you a merry Christmas, a happy New 
Year, and good health and good luck. 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



30 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

P. S. Do you know what it is to be hungry for a 
sensation? I suppose not, because you are in the 
habit of receiving them daily. But I can't get any 
here, in winter especially. I can only grind, grind all 
the time. Perhaps I have exhausted capacity for 
sensation in a Japanese city. Things which used to 
seem to me wonderful now produce no effect at all. 
I must try to make occasional voyages to the tropics. 



KuMAMOTO, January 14, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your delightful lines came 
this morning, and I waited only till after class to 
have this chance of chatting about something very 
close to my heart. I have just sent away an article 
about it, — under the rather misleading title, "The 
Japanese Smile." 

Your lines about Lowell almost put him into my 
room, and I think I can hear him talk. Now for 
some presumption. He is so much larger a man than 
I, that I would feel it presumption to differ with him 
on any point if I did not remember that in the 
psychological world a man may grow too tall to see 
anything near him clearly. Now first for my pre- 
sent position. Of course no thinker can ignore 
Lowell's book. The idea is too powerful, too scienti- 
fic, and too well sustained not to demand the utmost 
respect and study. I have given both. The result is 
that I must fully accept his idea as a discovery. The 
point on which I struggled longest was Spencer's 
statement that the "highest individuation must 
coincide with the greatest mutual dependence," — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 31 

that evolutional progress is *'at once toward the 
greatest separateness and the greatest union." This 
point was hard for me to accept because, in view of 
other studies I made, hard for me to understand. 
Now understanding it, taking it as a conviction into 
my mind, nothing remains but to accept Lowell's 
view. 

But still we are not at one. This is because his 
standpoint of pure science is too high to allow of 
that intimacy which means soul sympathy. I have 
tried to study from the bottom what he has ob- 
served from the top. Now, to me, the most beau- 
tiful, the most significant, the most attractive point 
of Japanese character, is revealed by the very ab- 
sence of that personality to which Mr. Lowell's book 
points as an Oriental phenomenon. I do not mean 
the fact in itself, but that which it signifies. What it 
signifies was very, very hard for me to understand. 
I could not understand some points until after a 
weary study of the Chinese classics. Others I under- 
stood, by guess, from passages in the Kojiki, — in 
old poems, — in Buddhist texts. Most of what I 
understand, however, I learned from mixing in the 
life of the people, observing, watching, questioning, 
wondering. Of course even now my knowledge is 
trifling. Still, it teaches me this : — 

(1) That the lack of personality is to a great 
extent voluntary, and that this fact is confirmed by 
the appearance of personality, strongly and dis- 
agreeably marked, where the social and educational 
conditions are new, and encourage selfishness. 

(2) That every action of Japanese life in the old 



¥ 



32 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Japan, from prince to peasant, was religiously 
regulated by the spirit of self-repression for the sake 
of the family, the community, the nation, — and 
that the so-called impersonality signifies the ancient 
moral tendency to self-sacrifice for duty's sake, 
r- And this, here badly expressed, confirms my often 
avowed belief that on the moral side the old Japan- 
ese civilization was as far in advance of the Western, 
as it was materially behind it. This advance was 
gained at some considerable sacrifice to character 
and mental evolution. But the loss does not signify 
that the moral policy was wrong. It signifies only 
that it was too much in the direction of mutual 
dependence. It was the highest possible morality 
from any high religious standpoint, — Christian or 
pagan, — the sacrifice of self for others. But it was 
in advance of the time. The indications are that the 
highly selfish and cunning, as well as the unselfish 
and frank qualities of man are necessary to the pre- 
servation of society and its development; and that 
in a civilization based upon the Occidental plan, the 
former qualities are still much more valuable to a 
community than the latter. But an ideally perfect 
state would be the Oriental form of Confucian gov- 
ernment, with Japanese morals, unstiffened by ultra 
conservatism, stimulating the development of the 
higher emotions and repressing the ignoble self only. 
It is just to such a state that we hope to attain in the 
unknown future. I think we have thrown Japan 
morally backward a thousand years ; she is going to 
adopt our vices (which are much too large for her). I 
agree with Percival Lowell, but I also agree with 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 33 

Viscount Torio (a wonderful thinker) , and I venture 
the opinion that both views are reconcilable. It 
does not follow because we have cultivated mental 
and physical force to the highest pitch so far known, 
that our methods of cultivation are natural and 
right, or that we may not have ultimately to aban- 
don all our present notions about the highest pro- 
gress and the highest morality. Personally I think J 
we are dead wrong, but that 's another matter. 

And now, begging pardon for so long a howl about 
abstracts, — let me talk about my book. I have 
written to the firm asking them to make it still larger. 
What insolence! But I offered to sacrifice all com- 
missions, payments, and even remuneration for 
articles. To me the all important point is to get out 
a thoroughly sympathetic book, without morbid- 
ness, just enough fun to keep in tone with modern 
thought. I hope I shall succeed. If not, I must try 
another publisher, rather than cut down the book. 
But I don't want another publisher. They are the 
Macmillans of America, beautiful printers, and 
essentially a literature firm. If I had Lowell's genius 
and Lowell's independence, how happy I should be. 
He can go where he likes, see what he likes, write 
what he likes and make beautiful books. I am heav- 
ily handicapped even in competing with writers as 
much below Lowell as he is above me. 

I like a rainy day, too, with a purring stove in 
the room, and some writing to do. My best wishes 
ever. 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



34 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

KuMAMOTO, January 15, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Heart's thanks for kindly 
words of sympathy just received. If the pubhshers 
prove intractable, any MS. you would like I will 
offer for use in the manner suggested. I had thought 
of some day becoming a member of the Society ; but 
I wanted to wait until my book appeared, — which 
would give me a better claim than I have now. I 
may try during this year what I can do with Eng- 
lish publishers for Japanese sketches. The American 
literary magazines pay too little; and the illustrated 
magazines cut a man's work up on the Procrustean 
system to hit the public with exactly a certain num- 
ber of words. I'll never get rich with publishers, 
unless I become awfully old as well as famous in 
literature, and able to make my own terms. 

We 've had no snow here, — never any to speak 
of. But the weather is fitful enough. By the way, I 
forgot in my last to chat about Mr. Lowell's "im- 
personality" and "personality" as an abstract 
quantity. I think as a quality, personality cannot be 
said to exist at all in the transcendental sense. I 
don't believe in that sense of it. The impression cer- 
tain men can produce upon others by their nerve 
presence is not, and cannot be proved to be, due to 
anything magnetic or hypermagnetic inside of 
them, — but to the recognition by others of force of 
aggressive will and other traits, uncommonly de- 
veloped; — they cause, in other words, a certain 
sense of caution and danger. A blind man could not 
thus be impressed by a new advent to any extent, 
unless his hearing had developed a sensitiveness to 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 35 

voice-tones as subtle as sight itself. In other words 
the impression produced by character upon us, can 
be altogether explained by instinctive knowledge of 
our own potential relations to that organization 
through inherited memory, or, more scientifically, 
race experience. There's nothing else in it, psychic 
or odic. It is only the question of knowing by sight 
what dog will bite on slight provocation. Don't you 
think so? Individuality alone is a real fact. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

January 17, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I 'm writing just because 
I feel lonesome; is n't that selfish.^ However, if I can 
amuse you at all, you will forgive me. You have 
been away a whole year, — so perhaps you would 
like to hear some impressions of mine during that 
time. Here goes. 

The illusions are forever over; but the memory of 
many pleasant things remains. I know much more 
about the Japanese than I did a year ago ; and still I 
am far from understanding them well. Even my 
own little wife is somewhat mysterious still to me, 
though always in a lovable way. Of course a man 
and woman know each other's hearts ; but outside of 
personal knowledge, there are race-tendencies diffi- 
cult to understand. Let me tell one. In Oki we fell 
in love with a little Samurai boy, who was having a 
hard time of it, and we took him with us. He is now 
like an adopted son, — goes to school and all that. 
Well, I wished at first to pet him a little, but I found 



36 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

that was not in accordance with custom, and that 
even the boy did not understand it. At home, I 
therefore scarcely spoke to him at all; he remained 
under the control of the women of the house. They 
treated him kindly, — though I thought coldly. The 
relationship I could not quite understand. He was 
never praised, and rarely scolded. A perfect code of 
etiquette was established between him and all the 
other persons in the house, according to degree and 
rank. He seemed extremely cold-mannered, and 
perhaps not even grateful, that was, so far as I 
could see. Nothing seemed to move his young pla- 
cidity, whether happy or unhappy his mien was 
exactly that of a stone Jizo. One day he let fall a 
little cup and broke it. According to custom, no one 
noticed the mistake, for fear of giving him pain. 
Suddenly I saw tears streaming down his face. The 
muscles of the face remained quite smilingly placid 
as usual, but even the will could not control tears. 
They came freely. Then everybody laughed, and 
said kind things to him, till he began to laugh too. 
Yet that delicate sensitiveness no one like me could 
have guessed the existence of. 

But what followed surprised me more. As I said 
he had been (in my idea) distantly treated. One 
day he did not return from school for three hours 
after the usual time. Then to my great surprise the 
women began to cry, — to cry passionately. I had 
never been able to imagine alarm for the boy could 
have affected them so. And the servants ran over 
town in real, not pretended, anxiety to find him. He 
had been taken to a teacher's house for something 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLIAN 37 

relating to school matters. As soon as his voice was 
heard at the door, everything was quiet, cold, and 
amiably polite again. And I marvelled exceedingly. , 

Sensitiveness exists in the Japanese to an extent 
never supposed by the foreigners who treat them 
harshly at the open ports. In Izumo I knew a case 
of a maid servant who received a slight rebuke with a 
smile, and then quietly went out and hung herself. I 
have notes of many curious suicides of a similar sort. 
And yet the Japanese master is never brutal or 
cruel. How Japanese can serve a certain class of 
foreigners at all, I can't understand. Possibly they 
do not think of them (the foreigners) as being exactly 
human beings, — but rather Oni, or at best Tengu. 

Well, here is another thing. My cook wears a 
smiling, healthy, rather pleasing face. He is a good- 
looking young man. Whenever I used to think of 
him I thought of the smile, I saw a mask before me 
merry as one of those little masks of Oho-kumi- 
nushi-no-kami they sell at Mionoseki. One day I 
looked through a little hole in the shoji, and saw him 
alone. The face was not the same face. It was thin 
and drawn and showed queer lines worn by old hard- 
ship. I thought, " He will look just like that when he 
is dead." I went in, and the man was all changed, — 
young and happy again, — nor have I ever seen that 
look of trouble in his face since. But I know when he 
is alone he wears it. He never shows his real face to 
me; he wears the mask of happiness as an etiquette. 

Do you remember that awful Parisian statue, a 
statue of which I forget the name, though the name 
might be, Society? A beautiful white woman bends 



38 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

smiling above you in stone. A witchery is that smile 
of hers. After admiring her a while face to face, you 
turn about her, to see more of the artist's work. 
And then, lo and behold! the face you looked upon 
turns out not to be a face at all; it was a Masque; 
you now see the real head thrown back,' in a distor- 
tion of unutterable pain. I think such an Oriental 
statue might also be made. This Orient knows not 
our deeper pains, nor can it even rise to our larger 
joys; but it has its pains. Its life is not so sunny as 
might be fancied from its happy aspect. Under the 
smile of its toiling millions there is suffering bravely 
hidden and unselfishly borne; and a lower intel- 
lectual range is counterbalanced by a childish sensi- 
tiveness to make the suffering balance evenly in the 
eternal order of things. 

Therefore I love the people very much, more and 
more the more I know them. 

Conversely I detest with unspeakable detestation 
^ I the frank selfishness, the apathetic vanity, the shal- 

C low vulgar scepticism of the New Japan, the New 

Japan that prates its contempt about Tempo times, 
and ridicules the dear old men of the pre-meiji era, 
and that never smiles, having a heart as hollow and 
bitter as a dried lemon. 

And with this, I say good-night. 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

January 19, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... I know your own 
sentiments about free opinion, but there are social 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 39 

questions. In my preface I have taken the ground 
that Japan has nothing to gaiii by Christianity. If 
you think that is all right as a private opinion, I'll 
let it stand. If you think my heterodoxy could 
reflect in any way unfavourably upon the mention 
of yourself in the work, I'll strike out, or modify 
the preface. Still, I really think just what I say; 
the Japanese are better than the Christians, and 
Christianity only seems to corrupt their morals. I 
have n't gone that far in the book; but I am quite 
sure my opinions, so far as present things go, are 
not much out of the truth. 

Fiske and others cling to the name Christianity 
with the desperation of drowning men; it is only a 
name. Our Western faith is far higher than the 
thing called Christianity. Our ethics have out- 
grown it, and burst their clothing of dogma. Our 
social evils are unaffected by it, except for the 
worse. We had to give up the legends of Genesis, 
the various traditions of Scriptural authorship, the 
belief in miracles, the belief in inspiration, the belief 
in vicarious sacrifice, the belief in the divinity of 
Christ, the belief in hell and heaven, the belief in the 
Father, — the belief in everything but the Holy 
Ghost. That is advanced Unitarianism, I believe. 
I 'm afraid, like Ruskin, of the Holy Ghost; the 
Lord and Giver of Life, — that we don't know any- 
thing about, except as He "wells up in conscious- 
ness." But what is left of Christianity .f^ Why, no- 
thing whatever essentially of Christ. And just as 
surely as everything else has gone, so surely the very 
name must go at last. To the thinkers of a higher 



40 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

and more rational faith in the future, the very name 
— recalling so much that is horrible in human 
history — will be discarded because of its exclusive- 
ness, its narrowness, and its memories of blood and 
fire. (There's heresy for you!) 

I should find living away from all Europeans 
rather hard, if it were not for the little world I have 
made around me. Some of it lingers in Matsue; but 
there are nearly twelve here to whom I am Life and 
Food and other things. However intolerable any- 
thing else is, at home I enter into my little smiling 
world of old ways and thoughts and courtesies ; — 
where all is soft and gentle as something seen in 
sleep. It is so soft, so intangibly gentle and lovable 
and artless, that sometimes it seems a dream only; 
and then a fear comes that it might vanish away. It 
has become Me. When I am pleased, it laughs; when 
I don't feel jolly, everything is silent. Thus, light and 
vapoury as its force seems, it is a moral force, per- 
petually appealing to conscience. I cannot imagine 
what I should do away from it. It is better to enter 
some old Buddhist cemetery here, than moulder 
anywhere else. For one may at least vaguely hope 
the realization of the old Buddhist saying: "The 
relation of father and child is but one life only; yet 
that of husband and wife is for two, and that of 
master and servant for three." You know the verse, 
of course. 

Very faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 41 

January 23, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — With a penetration pe- 
culiarly your own, you have probed my weak point 
(one which your criticism makes me feel aware of for 
the first time strongly) . Yes ; I have got out of touch 
with Europe altogether, and think of America when 
I make comparisons. At nineteen years of age, after 
my people had been reduced from riches to poverty 
by an adventurer, — and before I had seen anything 
of the world except in a year of London among the 
common folk, — I was dropped moneyless on the pave- 
ment of an American city to begin life. Had a rough 
time. Often slept in the street, etc., worked as a ser- 
vant, waiter, printer, proof-reader, hack-writer, grad- 
ually pulled myself up. I never gave up my English 
citizenship. But I had eighteen years of American 
life, — and so got out of touch with Europe. For the 
same reason, I had to work at literature through 
American vehicles. That is no matter, however, be- 
cause it has only been within the last few years that I 
learned to master my instrument a little, — language. 
My first work was awfully florid. I have a novel, 
"Chita," written in 1886, though not published for 
two or three years later, which I am now ashamed 
of. Self-control was the hardest thing to learn. 
Now I have got on far enough not to be afraid to 
offer work to an English publisher. Your offer of an 
introduction is of the highest importance possible. 
As for the book I think there is no doubt the pub- 
lishers will yield. But I would like to try my next 
luck with an English firm, very much. . . . 

You tell me about your difficulty in literary com- 



42 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

position, — perhaps I can make suggestion. I do not 
know your method, and everybody has his own. 
But I think I know your difficulty, — that it is also 
my own in Japan. Composition becomes difficult 
only when it becomes work, — that is literary labour 
without a strong inspirational impulse or an emo- 
tional feeling behind it. Now, in Japan, after the 
first experiences are over, — I can't imagine any- 
body having either an inspiration or a strong emo- 
tion. The atmosphere is soporific, grey, without 
electricity. Therefore work has to be forced. I never 
write without painfully forcing myself to do it. 

Now there are two ways of forced work. The first 
is to force thought by concentration. This is fa- 
tiguing beyond all expression, — and I think injur- 
ious. I can't do it. The second way is to force the 
work only, and let the thought develop itself. This is 
much less fatiguing, and gives far better results, — 
sometimes surprising results that are mistaken for 
inspiration. 

I go to work in this way. The subject is before 
me; I can't bother even thinking about it. That 
would tire me too much. I simply arrange the notes, 
and write down whatever part of the subject most 
pleases me first, I write hurriedly without care. 
Then I put the MS. aside for the day, and do some- 
thing else more agreeable. Next day I read over the 
pages written, correct, and write them all over again. 
In the course of doing this, quite mechanically new 
thoughts come up, errors make themselves felt, im- 
provements are suggested. I stop. Next day, I re- 
write the third time. This is the test time. The 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 43 

result is a great improvement usually, — but not per- 
fection. I then take clean paper, and begin to make 
the final copy. Usually this has to be done twice. In 
the course of four to five rewritings, the whole 
thought reshapes itself, and the whole style is changed 
and fixed. The work has done itself, developed, 
grown; it would have been very different had I 
trusted to the first thought. But I let the thought 
define and crystallize itself. 

Perhaps you will say this is too much trouble. I 
used to think so. But the result is amazing. The av- 
erage is five perfect pages a day, with about two or 
three hours work. By the other method one or two 
pages a day are extremely difficult to write. Indeed 
I do not think I could write one perfect page a day, 
by thinking out everything as I write. The mental 
strain is too much. The fancy is like a horse that 
goes well without whip or spur, and refuses duty if 
either are used. By petting it and leaving it free, it 
surpasses desire. I know when the page is fixed by 
a sort of focussing it takes, — when the first im- 
pression has returned after all corrections more for- 
cibly than at first felt, and in half the space first 
occupied. Perhaps you have done all this in prose, 
as you must have done it in other work; but if you 
have not, you will be astonished at the relief it 
gives. My whole book was written thus. Of course 
it looks like big labour to rewrite every page half a 
dozen times. But in reality it is the least possible 
labour. To those with whom writing is almost an 
automatic exertion, the absolute fatigue is no more 
than that of writing a letter. The rest of the work 



44 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

does itself^ without your effort. It is like spiritualism. 
Just move the pen, and the ghosts do the wording, 
etc. I am writing this only as a letter to you. It 
makes so many pages. If I were writing it for print, 
I would rewrite at least five times, — with the re- 
sult of putting the same thoughts much more forci- 
bly in half the space. Then again, I keep the thing 
going like a conjurer's balls. The first day's five pp. 
are recopied the second, and another five written; — 
the third day the first five are again recopied, and 
another five written. There is always matter ahead, 
though, I never recopy more than the first five, at 
one time. When these are finished, then I begin the 
second five. The average is five per day, 150 pp. per 
month. Another important thing is to take the 
most agreeable part of the subject first. Order is of 
no earthly consequence, but a great hindrance. 
The success of this part gives encouragement, and 
curiously develops the idea of the relative parts. 

Well, perhaps, I have been telling you something 
you know more about than I; but comparing notes 
is always good, and often a help. And now for an- 
other subject. 

There is a queer custom in Izumo which may in- 
terest you. When a wedding takes place in the 
house of an unpopular man in the country, the young 
men of the village carry a roadside statue of Jizo 
into the Zashiki, and announce the coming of the 
God. (This is especially done with an avaricious 
farmer, or a stingy family.) Food and wine are de- 
manded for the God. The members of the family 
must come in, salute the Deity, and give all the Sake 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 45 

and food demanded while any remains in the 
house. It is dangerous to refuse; the young peasants 
would probably wreck the house. After this, the 
statue is carried back again to its place. The visit of 
Jizo is much dreaded. It is never made to persons 
who are liked. In the cities this is not done, but 
stones are thrown into the house in heaps. Such an 
action is an expression of public opinion almost as 
strong as that of our Western charivari. 

Ever faithfully, 
Lafcadio Hearn. 

. . . English self -suppression is certainly a mar- 
vellous quality. Yet it is something so different 
from this Eastern self-control. Its pent-up vital 
force moreover finds vent in many ways unknown to 
the Orient, and foreign to its character. And lastly; 
is it not considerably one-sided .^^ Is it not confined 
to the outer repression of everything suggesting 
weakness or affection, — not to the masking of 
other feelings? Think of Heine's Englishman, with 
a black halo of spleen cutting against the sunny 
Italian sky! But, jest aside, see the Faces of London 
(I remember them still) or the Faces of any English 
crowd. There is such pain and passion there. Again, 
the extraordinary mobility and development of the 
facial muscles, shows something totally different to 
the Buddhist jihi-calm of these Japanese masks. If 
we could draw a line at all I would say it lies here : — 
We suppress the amiable facial expression, and ex- 
pose the aggressive and the sorrowful and the pain- 
ful feelings ; — while the Japanese cultivate the 



46 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

former, even as a mask, and suppress, in physiog- 
nomical play, everything representing the latter. 
Of course the peculiar nakedness of the American 
face greatly exaggerates the harder side of physi- 
ognomy, as we know it in Europe. America is the 
country of terrible faces : Fourier ought to have lived 
in it before writing his chapter on the physiognomy 
of the civilizes. One other thing in the way of op- 
posites, I think, is that we suppress certain forms of 
action more than their expression by physiognomy; 
while the Japanese repress the facial exhibition 
more than the action which would be the ultimate 
possible result of the feeling in question. A Western 
man would (unless belonging to a very artificial class 
of society) be apt to look serious before killing him- 
self. But even the average Japanese would smile 
more pleasantly, and act more kindly than usual, 
just before cutting his throat or lying down in front 
of a railway train. Hard and fast lines, however, are 
diflScult to draw. Nothing is so hazardous as to at- 
tempt to make any general statement, — and yet 
no temptation is stronger. 

Ever with best wishes, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

February 4, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... It is the Setsubun; 
and we have cast out the devils. I have had various 
little ceremonies performed upon me to keep me well 
and happy under the protection of the Gods for the 
year. The other day we presented a lantern to Fudo- 
San. When I get ever so little sick, all sorts of pretty 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 47 

prayers are offered up to the Gods for me; and little 
vows of self-denial are made. I protested a year ago 
against some of the vows. I had been really sick, 
and my father-in-law (he is a charming old man) 
vowed to live upon some totally unsubstantial diet 
for a year, if I got well. I made such a pretence of 
anger about that, that the vow was changed for a 
more rational one, — a present to the Gods ; but in 
all ordinary matters, I like these simple little acts of 
faith and piety and encourage them, and reverence 
the Gods. So that my foreign names appear upon 
many wooden tablets at various queer old shrines. 

You ask about Matsue foreigners. If it is nothing 
very special I think I can get you whatever informa- 
tion you want. . . . 

. . . Just now I can't remember the names of the 
beasts who were there before B — , — but the story 
is not spoiled for that. They aimed especially at 
converting Samurai girls, — because these were edu- 
cated, and supposed to still possess some small in- 
fluence. They were also very poverty-stricken, — 
desperate, starving; struggling between death and 
dishonour, — for Samurai girls had high notions of 
chastity. What the missionaries wanted were native 
local proselytizers. They induced one girl by promises 
of employment to become a preacher for them. 
They paid her three yen a month. Of course in be- 
coming a convert, she became a social pariah. Her 
people cast her off; common folk despised her. She 
was an innocent sort of a girl, — talked simply 
and feebly, — betrayed in her very manner the 
necessity and the compulsion. The people paid no 



48 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

attention to her. The missionaries dropped her as a 
useless instrument. Then no one would give her 
work or help. She became a prostitute. But even as 
a prostitute, her connection with proselytism had 
rendered her disreputable. So she was sold to an 
Osaka brothel. 

After what you say about your own latitudinari- 
anism, I am not afraid of my preface; it will not be 
offensive to you in the least. I hold with Lecky on 
the church in the Middle Ages, — socially it was a 
cementing force, — intellectually a curse to hu- 
manity, perhaps, but even this may yet prove to 
have been a necessary evil. The intrinsic merits 
claimed for it, I can't help thinking really to have 
been outside of it, — older than it, — superior to it. 
The germ of the eternal truth is the same in all 
faiths, — the same flame dimly burning within re- 
ceptacles of forms beyond memory for multitude. 
To abuse the receptacles, the wrappings, the cover- 
ings, of one light more than of another would perhaps 
be irrational in itself, — if one did not feel that, as 
dissolution is as necessary to advance as integration, 
there are ripe times and green times. When one sees 
dogmas used for wickedness of all sorts, and all the 
good men outside of them, one thinks it time to say 
even outrageous things. 

By the way, what you say about Rome awakes a 
chord. You know, I suppose, that my relatives tried 
once to make a priest of me. My father was an 
Episcopalian ; but after his death in India, I fell into 
the hands of relatives who sent me to a Jesuit Col- 
lege. By the Jesuit standard, I was a fiend incarnate. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 49 

and treated accordingly. How I hated them. My 
impotent resentment used to relieve itself in the 
imagination of massacres and horrible tortures. I 
hate them and have nightmares about them still. 
And yet at times, there comes to me a half wish to be 
a monk. This is all a romance, — the romance of 
the ideal monastery, with gothic ogives, libraries of 
vellums illumined by the stained -glass windows, etc., 
and rest from struggle. But the reality is Brown- 
ing's "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister." Still, 
there is a world of romance in old Romanism. 

Don't you think the Greek church (my mother's) 
has a better chance of life? Russia seems to me the 
Coming Race. I think there will be some day a 
Russian Mass sung in Saint Peter's. And that Cos- 
sack soldiers will wait, at Stamboul, in the reconse- 
crated basilica of Justinian, for the apparition of 
that phantom priest destined to finish the mass in- 
terrupted by the swords of the Janizaries of Ma- 
homet 2nd. 

(Next time, I'll say something about Spencer. 
To-night I must say good-bye.) 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

KuMAMOTO, February 5, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Well, I have read "Le 
Disciple." My first impression of the book was an 
unfair one; — I was annoyed by the writer's posing as 
a philosopher and moralist, and by his superficialism 
in the former role, — as well as by the extraordinary 
morbidness of the book. Even now I strongly sus- 



50 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

pect Bourget has not studied modern philosophy, 
but rather morbid pathology, — neurological ex- 
periments, obscene and otherwise, at the Salpe- 
triere, — something also perhaps of hypnotism. 
But after thinking over the matter, I must confess 
art in the book, must recognize the possibility of the 
types, and must acknowledge discovering in it the 
same purpose characterizing "Cruelle Enigme," and 
"Un Crime d'Amour;" revelation of faith and truth 
through consequences of inflicting suffering, — or, 
perhaps better, Nature enforcing recognition through 
the results of attempts to outrage and blaspheme 
her. Besides I have met and known M. Greslon, — 
a young professor of philosophy at a Colonial Col- 
lege, who used to analyze his own sensations for my 
benefit, dissect the feelings of the poor half-breed girl 
he lived with and whom he assured me he hated, and 
set down in a secret journal all her words, thoughts, 
etc. (as well as those of his unsuspecting male 
friends). He died of yellow fever; — we examined 
his papers, read a part, stared foolishly at each 
other, and burned the whole. I think he is better 
dead, — but having known him, I can't deny the 
possibility of Robert Greslon. He has lived; there- 
fore he lives. He is a peculiarly modern French 
product. 

There are certainly, however, weak points in the 
book from a philosophical point of view, — which 
cannot be said, perhaps, of "Crime d'Amour," or 
"Cruelle Enigme." The author's imagination about 
the old materialist doing for the evolution of senti- 
ment what Darwin did for the evolution of species. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 51 

is weak. (The comparison cannot hold; for Darwin 
did not discover the evolution of species at all, — 
but only certain natural laws relating to it.) The 
fact is that the evolution of sentiments has been 
very elaborately traced out by modern psychology, 
and that so far from narrowing our comprehension 
of the value of what is beautiful in human nature, 
has enormously expanded it. I am not prepared to 
deny that a mere study of the conclusions of scien- 
tific investigation in this line (without a profound 
knowledge of the tremendous and eternal facts be- 
hind them) , may not lead to very evil shallow no- 
tions. A study of ultimate facts is absolutely neces- 
sary, and there is a vast class of persons which never 
attempt that study. (Bourget certainly seems to be 
one.) The question of animal origins of sentiment 
can appear materialistic and shocking only to an 
ignorant mind. When we learn that the origin of our 
pleasure in the sense of colour (now transformed 
into pure sestheticism), may be sought for in the 
first development and utilization of the sense for the 
discovery of food ; — or when we are told that our 
pleasure in odours has a like origin ; — or when we 
find that the history of maternal love begins with 
the apparition of milk-secretion in the mammalia, 
etc., etc., — how much nearer to the great mystery 
of things does that bring us? On the contrary the 
horizon recedes. What is Life, Feeling, Will — ? No 
man not insane can pretend to say. But the more 
we learn the more the awe of the mystery. And 
taking for example the sweetest thing in the world, 
— a perfect woman-soul, — how infinitely more pre- 



52 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

cious it seems to us as the sum of all the goodness of 
a chain of lives reaching back through a million 
years into "God" or "The Unknowable," than as 
the spontaneous creation of a theological deity. 

Then, again, there is the suggestion in Bourget 
that education can transform character, — in the 
individual. This seems to me the weak point of the 
book. It is opposed to modern philosophy alto- 
gether; it would be ridiculed by any country school- 
master in New England. A character like the Gres- 
lon of Bourget, or the Greslon I knew, is not made 
by education, but simply defined. As truly as "a 
silk purse cannot be made out of a sow's ear, " just 
so truly the converse. As surely as there are in- 
herited forms of vice, just so surely are there ances- 
tral moralities. Nay, the latter is the rule, the 
former the exception. The poor people, en masse, 
are moral ; — the goodness of ten thousand years is 
in the marrow of their bones. No system of educa- 
tion possible in modern society can make a naturally 
good man into a real scoundrel. Education can only 
give definition to preexisting tendencies. 

To this it may be answered that there are charac- 
ters in which the tendencies to good and the tenden- 
cies to evil are so nicely balanced, that an error in 
education might throw them out of equipoise. This 
supposition is, in nine cases out of ten, based on a 
theological superstition, — unconsciously. As a fact 
there is no such delicate equipoise possible in nature. 
Each being represents a sum of tendencies inherited 
out of the unknown, — the course of a stream of 
life whose flow must be decided partly indeed by 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 53 

conditions, but even more so by its own intrinsic 
volume and power. As well talk of turning a river 
with a pebble as of transmuting a character by edu- 
cation. If character is psychically a sum of inherited 
tendencies, it is physiologically a plexus of nerve 
tissue. In both its phases it may be changed, or 
at least modified, in the course of generations, by 
additions and subtractions and influences of infinite 
complexity; but never in a single life. "Can the 
Ethiopian change?" etc. Who so well aware of this 
fact as the Jesuits? Out of ten thousand students 
they choose, finding perhaps ten fit for their work. 
And what an unnatural presentation is that of a 
veteran philosopher resting upon the assumption 
that right and wrong have no abstract existence. 
That might do for an uneducated scepticism ("work- 
ingman's atheism"), — scarcely for anybody with 
capacity to read and think. Certainly vice and vir- 
tue exist only relatively to human society (and ani- 
mal societies also) ; but their concrete importance is 
nowise lessened by the knowledge of their limitation 
as social facts. One may hold vice beneficial, like 
Mandeville, or the reverse; but a simple denial of 
good and evil as facts would be exactly similar to a 
denial of pleasure and pain as real sensations. In- 
deed I think that to modern philosophy vice has 
taken a new and terrible magnitude, and virtue an 
awful beauty. As sums of human experience with 
good and evil, or with pain and pleasure, how 
incomparably vast they seem. What is a crime, 
declared crime only by a local code or a sectarian 
dogma, compared with crime recognized as crime 



54 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

against the whole consensus of all human moral 
experience! 

Here I may say something Bourget has defined in 
my head, — I doubt the spirituality of the Latin 
races. They seem to me essentially materialistic. 
The emotional life of them seems to be in the nerves, 
even their most exquisite sensations. Taine has 
well shown how debauchery and vice are contrary 
to the Northern nature in a sort, — how the English 
instinctively recognize they can't be immoral with- 
out becoming brutal. On the other hand the French 
seem unable to become philosophical without be- 
coming grossly materialistic. They talk forever of 
"abimes;" yet which of them dive to the profundi- 
ties or soar to the heights reached by the Genius of 
the North? Imagine a French Goethe: or a Spanish 
Richter: or an Italian Emerson or Carlyle. Com- 
pare even their realism with Northern realism, — 
say Kipling with Maupassant. Find anything re- 
sembling what Clifford calls a "cosmic emotion" in 
their positivism. Even Renan is a Breton, — not a 
Latin. Fancy a Frenchman writing anything with a 
sustained ghostly charm of intellect in it like "The 
Soul of the far East." The nearest approach to soul 
in French books is an extreme sensual refinement, — 
a vibrant sense of nature in relation to the body; 
and this quality, — (easily mistaken for something 
higher) vanishes with youth, and the dulling of the 
nerves, — and there remains the ashes of the com- 
monplace. 

Then what force in a Scandinavian or Russian 
novel, compared with a Latin one. For morbid pa- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 55 

thology Bourget is a child to Dostoievsky; — for 
another sort of story, compare Tolstoi's "Cossacks" 
with the best work of Merimee, — say "Carmen" 
or "Colomba." I rather think it desirable that Eu- 
rope should "become Cossack." We are growing too 
nervous and tired and enervated in the West; — a 
general infusion of barbarian blood would greatly 
assist, and improve literature. Our morbid English- 
man is Mallock. I read and detest him ; his work is 
symptomatic. If you have no liking for him, give 
the book to some friend who may. By the way, do 
you know Sacher-Masoch? I have sent for his nov- 
els. If you have not read "La Mere de Dieu," you 
will have a treat. I think he is a Jew; and I am very 
fond of the Jewish novelists. The best are Slavs, — 
or at least from the Slavic side of Austria. . . . 

I am charmed by your delightful suggestion of 
faith in future possibilities beyond scientific recog- 
nition, — though too much of a Spencer lover to 
think of Spencer as dogmatic. We know that mem- 
ory is inherited, — only in the process of transmis- 
sion it now becomes transmitted into instinct and 
impulse, — into vague unaccountable shrinkings 
and aspirations, loves and fears. But why should we 
hold it must always be so. As the spectroscope re- 
veals the existence of colour-scales invisible to our 
imperfect vision, there may well be psychic facts 
undreamed of yet awaiting discovery. The time 
may come when the fable of the Bodhisattva's mem- 
ory will prove a common truth, — when with each 
advance in development there will lighten up recol- 
lections of past existence, and one can say, — "What 



56 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

a fool I was to do that thing five thousand years 
ago." Remembrance of all the past in all its details 
might be horribly unpleasant, but also incalculably 
useful. And I can imagine (illegitimately, perhaps, 
but still imagine) a condition of developmental ac- 
tivity in which time and space would have no rela- 
tive existence, — and a thousand years be as a day. 
There is one grim fact about our new philosophy. 
We know that we are approaching slowly a degree 
of equilibration which means happiness ; but we also 
know that the dissolution of a solar system is as cer- 
tain as its integration. Everything evolves only to 
dissolve, — so far as known facts teach us. After 
all, we have reached no further than the unscientific 
but strangely inspired thinkers of India, with their 
ancient theory of cycles. Buddhism and Spencer, 
before the Ultimate, stand upon the same ground. 
And I think of your wise saying about taking one's 
faith ready made. Assuredly it seems the most ra- 
tional, and beyond doubt it is the prudent course for 
those who can devote their minds to more momen- 
tous and useful things. Then I would say for me 
Buddhism. 

Mason said a delightful thing in his last letter to 
me, about the effect of Japanese art in teaching him 
to see and feel the beauty of snow. I have had the 
same experience. European art does not seem to me 
to have ever caught the Soul of Snow as the Japanese 
art has, — with its fantasticalities, its wizardisms. 
And the Japanese fancy has its "Snow-women" 
too — its white spectres and goblins, which do no 
harm and say nothing, only frighten and make one 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 57 

feel cold. I can see the beauty of snow now, but 
still it makes me shiver. I think the Yukionna some- 
times when I am asleep, passes her white arm through 
a crack of the amado into my sleeping room, and in 
spite of the fire, touches my heart and laughs. Then 
I wake up, and pull the futons closer, and think of 
palm trees, and parrots, and mangoes, and the blue 
of the tropical water. What a delight it would be to 
follow the birds south every autumn. — But I for- 
got, you dislike heat, and blazing sun, and perspi- 
ration. Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. What you said about railroads and Christ 
is admirable. I am beginning to doubt very strongly 
the ultimate value of our boasted material progress, 
— to doubt *' civilization" as a human benefit. 

I promise not to write so long a letter again. 
Really, I am ashamed of thus intruding on your 
time, you must be bored if you read all this. 

February 6, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your letter about the 
method of composition has come, — far more lucid 
than my rather vague epistle on the same subject, 
which I now find requires some further explanation. 
Of course I did not mean printed pages, — only MS» 
pp. like this: I could not make 150 good printed 
12mo pages in less than four months under very fa- 
vourable circumstances and with the hardest work. 
Besides, I was speaking of forced composition. In- 
spirational work, emotional work, is just twenty 



68 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

times harder, if it can be measured at all. Too much 
importance cannot be attached to the value of an 
emotion, — the "kernel," as you so aptly term it. 
But this comes only as a feeling. To perfectly disen- 
gage it {le degager), develop it, discover its whole 
meaning, focus it, is killing work. There is delight in 
looking at the result; but that is obtained only by 
actually giving one's blood for it. I am talking now, 
perhaps, as if I were a big instead of a very small 
writer; but the truth is that the cost is greater in 
proportion to the smallness of original power. I have 
had to rewrite pages fifty times. It is like a groping 
for something you know is inside the stuff, but the 
exact shape of which you don't know. That is, I 
think, also the explanation of the sculptor's saying 
that the figure was already in the marble; the art 
was only to "disengage it." 

Didactic work is one of the hardest, of course. 
Nothing is harder to write than a primer. Simpli- 
city combined with force is required ; and that com- 
bination requires immense power. (There I rever- 
ence Huxley, for example.) And as you excellently 
observe, the effect of the work is in direct ratio to 
the pains taken to produce it by a master hand. 
This takes no small time to learn. What apparent 
ease in writing really means I regret to say that I 
only learned a few years ago ; if I had learned sooner, 
it would have done me much good. 

Otherwise your method is in all points like mine. 
I have to do much excision of "verys," "thats" and 
" whiches," — to murder adjectives and adverbs, — 
to modify verbs. Every important word seems to 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 59 

me to have three qualities: form, sound, and colour. 
After the first and last have been considered, follows 
the question of the rhythm of the sentence. This I 
think may approach blank verse, at the termination 
of paragraphs, if a strong emotion be expressed. It 
may be smooth as oil if the effect to be produced is 
smooth, — or rough, — or violent as may be. But 
all this is never done by rule, — only by instinctive 
feeling, half unconsciously. In the body of a para- 
graph too much flow and rhythm seems to hurt the 
effect. Full force is best reserved for the casting- 
throw of the whole thought or emotion. I should 
like now to go through many paragraphs written 
years ago, and sober them down. 

Print, of course, is the great test. Colour only 
comes out in proof, — never in MS. I can't get any- 
thing perfect in MS. A friend is invaluable. You are 
very lucky to have Mason. I have nobody in Japan to 
read to, or to ask advice of; and I feel the void very 
much. Why a man of such delicate taste as Mason 
does not himself write charming books, I don't 
know. Perhaps you could make him try. 

Then I keep note-books. I have no memory to 
speak of, since my experiences with tropical fevers 
and other sickness. I note down every sensation or 
idea, as you say au vol. And I have classified note- 
books, — with indexes; must show you some one of 
these days. 

Now I am just going to "lie fallow" for six 
months. Indeed I can do nothing else; for there is 
nothing to see, hear, or feel in Kyushu, I think. And 
I want to learn something thoroughly, so as to try to 



60 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

write stories or sketches of a better sort. I want sen- 
sations too. But out of Japanese life I fear no strong 
sensation will ever again come to me. I feel fizzed 
out. '' Mon ante a perdu ses ailes.'' 

Faithfully ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Wonder if you will have patience to read the long 
scrawling scraggy letter I sent yesterday. You must 
not think I mean to be so verbose often. 



February 18, 1898. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... Let me pray and beg 
and entreat and supplicate you to read Loti's "Ro- 
man d'un Spahi." It will give you a better opinion 
of him. I regret I have no copy to send you. Other- 
wise I feel inclined to agree with you about his later 
books, his " Fantome d'Orient," etc. However, I am 
sure you must have liked "Reve;" if you did not, I 
can only explain the fact by the supposition that its 
tropical charm appeals to nothing in your personal 
experience as it does, almost poignantly, to some- 
thing in mine. I know the strange equatorial twi- 
light, — the petite rue triste, triste, — the planter's 
interior with the banana shadow trembling in a 
square of sunlight on the bare floor, — the furniture, 
— the hat, — the young woman with the great sad 
eyes. Nay, I know the cemetery. And when I read 
that story first, it made me very thoughtful for a 
long time, so that for a week I did not like to talk; I 
wanted to enjoy the pleasure of the ghostly pain. 

Then don't you think there was a touch of weird 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 61 

pathos in Viande de Boucherie? it affected me very 
much. The Japanese tale is made unnecessarily re- 
pulsive; — still, I liked that trembling in the leaves; 
when the spirits of the ancestors come to take the 
poor soul unto themselves, — and the suggestion 
that the miserable little corpse will live again in the 
blossoming of the azaleas and marvellous flowers; 
purified by the all-tender soul of Nature, and re- 
stored into her eternal youth. 

But I fear Loti's nerves are played out. His work 
has become morbid of late. Only in exotic subjects 
he excels all others living, I think. His pictures of 
the Pacific, of Senegal, of South America and the 
Mediterranean bewitch me beyond all utterance. I 
don't agree with James, that his great work is in 
*'Mon Frere Yves," and in "Pecheur d'Islande." 
Indeed I don't think James really read those other 
works. To me Loti seems for a space to have looked 
into Nature's whole splendid burning fulgurant soul, 
and to have written under her very deepest and 
strongest inspiration. He was young. Then the 
colour and the light faded, and only the worn-out 
blase nerves remained ; and the poet became, — a 
little morbid modern affected Frenchman. 

Loti used to write to me a little, — not very 
familiarly, and I have his photograph. It is rather 
disappointing in some respects, he looks more like a 
fop than a great poet. But since he became a mem- 
ber of the Academy, he answers letters only through 
his Secretary, — 

''Monsieur, 

M. Pierre Loti vous r enter cie" etc., — 



62 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

which is simply disgusting. Again the translation of 
his worst books must accentuate his error in depart- 
ing from the path in which Nature herself taught 
him to excel. Perhaps she is punishing him for not 
loving her enough, — with his heart instead of his 
nerves. 

Never mind, I'll have a treat for you in Sacher- 
Masoch. 

"Returning to Sir Walter," etc., reminds me of 
my own recent experience. I used to adore Tenny- 
son's "Idyls of the King." But to-day what artificial, 
strained, over-delicate conservatory work they 
seem, after a fresh perusal of naif Sir Malory's 
"Morte d'Arthur," which is all pure human nature. 
After for years studying poetical prose, I am forced 
now to study simplicity. After attempting my ut- 
most at ornamentation, I am converted by my own 
mistakes. The great point is to touch with simple 
words. And I feel my style is not yet fixed, — too 
artificial. By another year of study or two, I think I 
shall be able to do better. 

The winter here has been snowless and beautifully 
clear for the majority of days. Wherefore I ought to 
be happy, and would be if I had a friend like Nishida 
here. Also I find I am morally better by reason of 
the stove and a warm room. My folks say I have 
never said a cross word since I had a warm room. 
Heat thus appears as a moral force. Just think how 
holy I should be could I live forever under the 
equator. 

Ever most faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 63 

Nishida and others admire your Japanese writing, 
not as yours merely, but in itself. I won't tell you 
the prettiest things he said about it; but I can't see 
the fine differences between your Japanese writing 
and that of others, except the differences caused by 
the use of a pen of a peculiar kind. But Nishida said 
if I studied Japanese writing Jor ten years, — even 
then I would not know good writing if I saw it. 
Heigho ! 

My chat about Loti has defined something else in 
my mind. (I feel more and more convinced that 
Frenchmen think only with their nerves, — and too 
much with the pudic nerve especially.) There was 
Gautier, — wondrous artist (I translated and pub- 
lished his Contes and Nouvelles when I was too 
young to do the work well); and that magician of 
language never appealed to anything behind the 
senses. His most perfect poem — " Musee Secret, " 
perhaps the most perfect poem in the French lan- 
guage — was marvellous ; — a Greek god could not 
have done better; the thoughts, the words, the com- 
parisons, the allusions, the melody are simply divine. 
But . . . the subject? (It is published in Bergerat's 
" Souvenirs de Theophile Gautier.") Such work daz- 
zles and makes the senses reel with its sensuous splen- 
dour, — yet when I turn to the simple little poem con- 
taining the verse (I know not the author's name), — 

Nos clairons sonnaient "En avant," 
Elle a pleure, pleure, pleure; — 
J'ai marche, — et je marche toujours, — 
Et jamais je ne reviendrai, — 

there I feel the Eternal Heart beating, which lives 



64 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

beyond space and time. Or take again a comparison 
of North and South : — - 

Nombril, je t'aime, astre du ventre, 
Oeil blanc dans le marbre sculpte, 

Et que I'Amour a mis au centre 

Du sanctuaire ou seul il entre, 
Comme un cachet de volupte. 

(Gautier.) 

This is very, very fine use of language of course, but 
the simple — 

She is more beautiful than Day — 

of Tennyson is worth a million of it. Of course these 
comparisons are absurdly extreme; but I think they 
are characteristic. Put the best poem by the rather 
spiritual Hugo beside Heine's " Pilgrimage to Kev- 
laar." We have French-English poets, however. 
Swinburne's music is indeed wonderful, but I 'd 
rather read the old ballad about the harper who 

Could harp the fish out of the sea 

Or bluid out of a stane, 
Or milk out of a maiden's breast 
That never bairns had nane. 

I hope for the Russian invasion of the West. 
When the Russians have, after the conquest, 
reached the point of writing poems like Gautier 's 
*' Nombril," and the other, it will then be time for 
the Chinese to conquer the world. 

L. H. 

February 24, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — "Dona Luz," which I have 
nearly finished, has been producing a curious phe- 
nomenon in my mind. I told you I had forgotten 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 65 

most of my Spanish, after ten years out of touch 
with everything Spanish. Beginning " Dona Luz," I 
was surprised to find how obscure everything 
seemed ; but as a portion of each sentence remained 
clear, I determined to go on and see what the effect 
would be. On the third day I was astonished, — 
because nearly everything came back to me again; 
and even the parts at first obscure lighted up sud- 
denly as with a flash. And now I find myself able 
even to think a little in Spanish again. But that 
was only one side of the experience. 

With this resurrection of the memory of Spanish, 
recurred to me, with vividness extraordinary, two 
episodes of my early Spanish studies, — long for- 
gotten, — especially the memory of a certain blue- 
washed balconied room in an old Creole house over- 
looking bananas, and one enormous fig tree. The 
two episodes may perhaps amuse you, — since you 
say you can really sometimes find recreation in my 
scribbling. 

My first teacher was an old man with a long face, 
hke Alva, and a long beard. He had two gypsy- 
looking daughters, — really attractive senoritas, 
and two swarthy sinister-looking sons. A peculiar- 
ity of the whole family was that I never saw any of 
them smile. One day the old man and I had some 
sharp words. He had borrowed from me a consid- 
erable sum of money, which he failed to return. On 
my using some indignant language, he threatened 
me with his sons. Now I had seen his sons, — so I 
put a revolver in each pocket whenever I went out. 
But I learned a few days later that my revolvers 



66 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

would have been of no service. For one of the sons, 
having a slight difference of opinion with a planter, 
blew out the man's brains with a double-barrelled 
shot-gun near my house. A revolver is useless 
against buckshot. I thought myself lucky, and re- 
signed myself to the loss. 

Then I obtained a milder teacher, — a Mexican 
youth, with a very curious Indian face. He spoke 
only the tropical Spanish, — which has no thay or 
diflScult erray; but that was just what I wanted. 
We became companeros. But somebody found out 
his name, and translated it. This proved disastrous. 
For his name was Jose de Jesus y Preciado. It was 
translated into "precious Jesus" by some rascally 
young Americans; and poor Jose was accused of 
being a peripatetic blasphemy. Wherefore he was 
obliged to return to the land of Ixtacihuatl, — 
where such names are in the odour of sanctity, and 
I saw him no more. So much for the Episodes. As 
for " Dona Luz," I don't know what to compare the 
art of it to. It has a sort of quiet, intimate, yet un- 
forgettable charm. I thought of Goldsmith, and I 
thought of Sandeau, — but Valera is essentially and 
inimitably Spanish. I am going to read all the Span- 
ish I can for the next year or so ; — especially as I 
hope to spend a winter one of these days in Manila, 
or some little city of the Philippines. For my pur- 
pose I fancy the smaller and more remote the town 
the better. 

I have little news, except a discovery about Inari. 
After all there are stone foxes, — if not in Kuma- 
moto, at least very near to it, at the little village 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 67 

of Takahashi-machi, 2 ri from Kumamoto. But 
these foxes are mythological hybrids; they are half 
Karashishi and half foxes, — and the Karashishi 
element predominates strongly. Even their atti- 
tude is rampant. Well, what is most curious is that 
they are not Shinto, but Namu-miyo-ho-renge-JcyOy 
and incense is burnt, and Buddhist prayers said be- 
fore them. In Izumo it is not uncommon to find 
a Jizo or other Buddhist deity captured by Shinto; 
but a fox-deity captured by the Nichiren-shu is 
certainly new to me. 

Faithfully ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 5, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I suppose it is no use to 
tell you that I felt lonesome after your visit, and 
selfishly vexed that you could stay only for those 
few hours. Well, you see! — in spite of our agree- 
ment upon the futility of hurry-scurry and frantic 
effort as means to happiness, you committed hurry- 
scurry; — we can't help ourselves always. And, 
Thackeray-wise, I thought of all the fine things I 
wanted to say after you were gone. I wanted to 
show you a doll, that was the philosophical toy of 
an Emperor, — and two ink stones of Bateiseki, — 
and an extraordinary text, — and. . . . But I was 
so inwardly worried by the mere thought of your 
going away so soon, that I forgot them. It is really 
immoral only to stay such a short time; it is a para- 
lyzing of wishes and intentions. Still, I would not 
have missed it for anything. It knitted closer, or 



68 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

rather re-knitted my old tie of gratitude and friend- 
ship ; and in spite of our best endeavours such ties 
will slacken a little if friends never see each other. 
For we cannot be altogether ourselves on paper. 

I sent the bulk of the ofuda and mamori by ex- 
press, the package was too large for parcel-post. But 
I kept back many things I knew you had. Also I 
kept back two mamori you have not, — two that I 
don't like to surrender altogether on accqunt of 
associations, but which I can send you for use when- 
ever you want them. Or, to speak more frankly, my 
folks begged me not to send away those two, which 
we got under peculiar circumstances while travelling. 

. . . The day after you left it . . . snowed! I 
thought of you, and felt uneasy; for you had a cold, 
and the change must have been terrible a few hun- 
dred miles north. What an unmerciful winter. 

To return to older topics, an idea is growing upon 
me about the utility of superstition as compared 
with the utility of religion. Indeed the latter is but 
an elaboration of the former, and both have truth 
at the bottom of them. Superstition in Japan has a 
sort of shorthand value in explaining eternal and 
valuable things. To preach to people (who know 
nothing) about sociological morality, — or the rela- 
tion of cleanliness to health, — or other things of 
that kind, — would certainly be waste of breath. 
A superstition serves the purpose infinitely better. 
But I think the superstition is in many cases de- 
veloped after the practice begins. Some practices 
must have originated simply in the will of political 
or religious rulers. After the force of their com- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 69 

mand had spent itself, it was continued and revived 
by new beliefs. The beliefs that to drop nail parings 
in a hibachi will cause madness; that not to shave 
the hair and eyebrows of Samurai children will 
cause them to have misfortune in war; that to lay 
futon unevenly will cause a quarrel between hus- 
band and wife; that to make the Shoji of a room over- 
lap to the left instead of to the right is to invite 
misfortune; that to leave a room unswept is an in- 
vitation to Bimbogami; that to touch a pillow 
with the foot is displeasing to the gods ; that to tread 
upon or crumple either written or printed paper, or 
writing of any kind, is wickedness, — all these and 
a hundred others are so closely related to practical 
truths of a much larger character than themselves, 
that one feels a new respect for superstition in 
analyzing them. Is n't it the same with much of our 
Western religion .^^ Why, it was only the other day 
that the proposition for the teaching of sociological 
morality was made for the first time in America; in 
other words, it is only at the present day that we are 
able, in our very highest educational institutions, to 
rationalize morals and scientifically illustrate the 
relation of actions to consequences. Hell and dam- 
nation, angels and devils and myths, have certainly 
had incomparable value as shorthand religious 
moral teachings. Fancy trying to get into a peas- 
ant's head the whole reason why adultery, incest, 
or murder are punished as crimes. 

I hope if we are to have another winter like this, 
that you will be able to spend it in a warm country, 
— a tropical country. Dr. Haga has nearly cured me, 



70 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

but the climate helps him. Tokyo is so changeable. 
How you would enjoy a West Indian winter! For 
six months it is heaven ; after that you begin to feel 
the drain on the system. But six months is a won- 
derful tonic. If ever I get rich enough I have three 
ambitions to fulfil: — (1) A winter in Manila; 
(2) A winter in Pondicherry; (3) A winter in Java. 
These will perhaps be the luxuries of my old age, 
if I have any. 

Ever with sincerest regards, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 10, 1893, 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your kindest letter from 
Moji made me very glad; — also took away some 
uneasiness, for it hinted your intention of shortly 
getting home, which I really think is best. I have 
not been feeling comfortable about that cold of 
yours; and prolonged further travelling, in fitful 
weather, might I think make it worse, — espe- 
cially if you are out of the reach of recuperative 
solid food. Sometimes I have been quite miserable 
while travelling for want of even good Japanese food, 
which I had to make up for by sake. I hope this 
will find you already at home, before a big pink 
fragrant roast of beef, with a bottle of claret beside 
you, and your cold quite well. Since I wrote last the 
Spring has really come; my trees are turning pink 
under the green. And to-morrow or next day I ex- 
pect to hear my fate from Boston; the only doubt 
now seems to be the question of quantity, for which 
I made a stout fight. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 71 

My little wife was more than pleased by your 
kind words of thanks. You surprised my house, by 
the way. To hear an Englishman speak English was 
not a new experience, of course; but to hear an 
Englishman "speak better Japanese than a Japa- 
nese" and so as "to make Japanese blush for their 
Japanese" was an astonishment. I translate these 
little compliments verbatim, because they were 
straight from the heart, and cannot seem to you to 
have been uttered with any idea of flattery, — for 
they were too innocent to think of that. 

I sent you the " Naulahka " to amuse you the 
next wet day, and my Gougaristic first-novel. The 
ofuda went by express. I have been thinking over 
things. I have some curious legends about many of 
the ofuda which might come in useful some day. 
For instance there is a family in Matsue which has 
for its mon an ofuda of Ise. Why.f* The story is that 
once a servant of the family went to Ise in despite 
of the master's order to remain in the house. When 
he came back the Samurai flew into a rage and killed 
him. Then the murderer felt sorry, and buried the 
body in the garden, — or bamboo-patch. The day 
after the servant came back again, and apologized 
for his absence at Ise. You can guess the rest of the 
legend. When the grave was opened there was no 
dead body there, — only an ofuda cut in two as if 
by a sword-slash. 

Well, I have various legends of this kind. I think 
I can get from Matsue ofuda relating to other tra- 
ditions. I don't believe in "writing up" to illus- 
trations in most cases; but in this particular sort 



79 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

of study it is well worth while. There are the beau- 
tiful or curious legends of Hinomisaki, of the Mat- 
sudaira Inari, of the Tenjin ofuda, of weird Zenkoji 
(where I want to go next summer); and there are 
songs, and there are proverbs. To use all will be 
impossible. But to use the strangest and most im- 
aginative by selection would have a startling effect. 
A specially interesting department would be related 
to the ofuda and mamori of children or of Chil- 
dren's Gods, — with Jizo in a hundred forms at the 
head. All this for future pleasant lazy days. I won't 
impose on your eyes any more this time, but will 
say good-bye (till next American mail comes). 

With best regards, and kindliest remembrances 
from us all here. 

Ever most faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 13, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Talk of the "pendulum!" 
How my letters must amuse you between times! 
(I say amuse, knowing your patience.) They reflect 
my own perturbations of spirit. But they are cer- 
tainly a record of illusion and disillusion. Now only 
is it time, according to Amiel, whom you quoted 
in your book, that I ought to be able to treat the 
subject of Japan at all sensibly. But Amiel, like our 
friend Mason, did not write at all; he only made 
notes. He waited, like Mason, till the illusion 
passed. And had I so waited, I believe I could 
never have written at all. Happily I will have at 
least two indulgent readers. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 73 

To-day there was a ceremony which partly recon- 
ciled me to these people. There is a dear old Tempo 
man in the school, — famous in the history of the 
Revolution. His name is Akizuki. To-day was his 
seventieth birthday. He teaches Chinese to the 
boys. Well, all the students and all the teachers 
subscribed to a feast in his honour, and made 
speeches and did very pretty things. The boys got 
an oil-portrait of him painted, and took it with them 
to the banqueting hall. All this was nice. But soon 
there will be no more of these lovable old men, — 
nothing but addle-pated young sports with billy- 
cocks and cigarettes and billiards on the brain. 
That they can honour beautiful old age at least 
shows that they are not quite dead yet to themselves; 
but I fear the process of ossification is very rapid. 
There will be no hearts after a time (among the 
men); Waterbury watches will be substituted in- 
stead. These will be cheap and cold, but will keep 
up a tolerably regular ticking. 

I was looking at your article on fans in "Things 
Japanese" yesterday, and noticed that you say all 
subjects are treated on fans, "except perhaps reli- 
gion." The "perhaps" saves the statement; but 
last summer I saw many religious subjects on fans, 
— torii, niiya, matsuri, etc., and quite a number 
of fans decorated with the chubby figure of Fuku- 
suke. But the important point I would suggest 
is that religious fans actually form a very strik- 
ing class by themselves. Nearly all the temples 
give away fans decorated with pictures of the holy 
place. These, I think, would be worth a special 



74 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

mention in any work on ofuda and other sacred 
curiosities. 

We were talking about education the other day. 
I have been thinking that the deficiencies of edu- 
cational systems will have in the future to be met 
with by means which it is now impossible even to 
imagine. Perhaps one would be the abolition of 
schools, — as too mechanical and wasteful of time. 
(Herbert Spencer, I believe, never went to school 
at all.) But here is the difficulty, — always grow- 
ing, — which the future must face. According to 
the present system, one-fourth of life at least must 
be devoted simply to preparation. Another fourth 
must be given to the struggle to live and maintain 
a family. At least half of life must go to the mere 
effort of preparing for life. This, I know, is com- 
monplace. But all the sciences, enormously expand- 
ing and subdividing into branches, are outgrowing 
the institutions established to teach them, and must 
continue to outgrow them with ever-increasing ra- 
pidity. (Who, for example, can now pretend to be 
a good general physician.'^ one must take a branch, 
and make it a life study.) The enforcement of spe- 
cialization into even rudimentary educational sys- 
tems could only meet the difficulty for a certain 
time; — it is one that never can be buried. And al- 
ready the result of much high education is only a 
smattering of much with a knowledge of nothing, — 
for the average student. Our brains eat up our lives 
and the life of the world, — and yet are starved or 
fed with ornamental bric-a-brac. Progress is leading 
us to a future in which it will require half a century 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 75 

to merely prepare a brain for work; and unless the 
Elixir of Life be discovered, what is the use? " In- 
ky o" would scarcely be possible in the West. The 
parents (except among the really wealthy) die long 
before their children are able to do anything. I can't 
escape the conviction that an enormous part of what 
we now imagine to be education must be pitched 
overboard to lighten the ship. And we shall never, 
never have any more time to enjoy the world. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 
P. S. — "Ah!" 

(1) Statistically it has been admirably shown 
that education does not decrease criminality. The 
superstition of the West has been that the lower 
classes should be educated to keep them from being 
dangerous. But education has made them much 
more dangerous than they ever were before. 

(2) Buckle pointed out years ago that on the 
other hand, the extremely high culture of a supe- 
rior class, so far from enabling it to elevate the class 
beneath it, actually exiles it from all other classes, — 
as in Germany where even the language of the sci- 
entific classes had become totally unintelligible to 
all others. Since Buckle's time, the same might be 
said of the highly cultivated classes of other coun- 
tries, — their thoughts, their words, their books 
9,re hieroglyphics to the multitude. 

(3) A world of extraordinary possible results can 
be imagined from the future aggravation of both 
states of things. 

(4) The government of the ancient Orient, 



76 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

*' founded upon benevolence," resolved the difficulty 
unconsciously in a much better way. The educa- 
tion of the people shall be moral only, — shall be 
the teaching of eternal truths, — the relations of 
the family, the duties of children and subjects. And 
he who says anything new shall be put to death. 
Also he who invents inventions shall be killed. Both 
laws I find in the sacred books of China. They are 
good laws, from one point of view. And after all the 
matter is brought back to a celebrated maxim of 
Spencer's — 

That the object of all education should be sim- 
ply to make good fathers and mothers. 

Here the ancient Orient agrees with Mr. Herbert 
Spencer. 

But how can people be educated to become good 
fathers and mothers, if the largest part of life must 
be devoted merely to learning that which is of no 
practical use, — and if for the really learned mar- 
riage becomes more difficult with every generation. 

The imposition of Chinese laws upon the West 
for a time might not be so very bad. 

"Let him who says anything new, or him who 
shall invent anything new, be put to death." 

I send a couple of Masoch's volumes of stories 
for you and Mason to while away dull moments 
with. 

April 17, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... I find out it is not 
the custom here to call on the Director. And I have 
never spoken to him yet. But he is evidently a dis- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 77 

ciplinarlan. Since he came, things have become 
more exact. The clock that used always to strike 
twelve when it was only eleven, has been corrected; 
tablets covered with Chinese characters proclaim 
rigid enactments and boundaries; and the students 
who assembled to hear long speeches were dismissed 
with a few words of Lacedemonian brevity and con- 
ciseness, almost as soon as they formed ranks. The 
new Director is a fine man, — looks like a handsome 
Jew, — walks with a long stride like an ostrich. I 
should like to know the mystery of him. 

Why am I writing this letter.^^ Well, just because 
a new idea came to me somewhat definitely. The 
Japanese problem is such a huge one, that I am ven- 
turesome enough to believe you have time to listen 
to any ideas about it not already worn out. The 
idea I refer to was given me by the sight of the Amer- 
ican newspaper of which I used to be literary editor. 
It comes to me filled with columns headed "Fem- 
inine Gossip," "New Fashions," "Woman in Art," 
"Clara Belle's Letter about Small Feet," etc., all 
accompanied by small outline woodcuts, represent- 
ing wonderful women in wonderful dresses. The 
original poetry is all about love and despair. The 
stories are tales about enamoured swains and cruel 
beauties. The whole thing is now nauseating to me, 
— yet I used to think it rather refined compared 
with other papers. At all events it is a type of sev- 
eral hundred. As a type it is suggestive. 

"Teacher," cry my students, "why are English 
novels all about love and marriage? That seems to 
us very strange." They say "strange." They think 



78 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

"indecent." Then I try to explain: — *' My dear lads, 
the world of the West is not as the world of the East. 
In the West, Society is not, as you know, constituted 
upon the same plan. A man must make his own 
family; the family does not make him. What you 
do not know, is that for the average educated man 
without money, life is a bitter and terrible fight, — 
a battle in which no quarter is given. And what is 
the simplest and most natural thing of all in Japan, 
— to get married, — is in the West extremely difficult 
and dangerous. Yet all a man's life turns upon that 
effort. Without a wife he has no home. He seeks 
success, in order to be rich enough to get married. 
Success in life means success in marriage. And the 
obstacles are many and wonderful." . . . (I explain.) 
"Therefore English novels treat of love and mar- 
riage above all things; because these mean every- 
thing in life for the English middle classes at least; 
and the middle classes like these books, and make 
the men rich who write them well, because they 
sympathize with the imaginary sufferings of the 
lovers. Which you don't, — because you can't, — 
and I guess you're just about right on that score." 

But I know my explanation is very partial. Still, 
without endangering my reputation, I can't go into 
further particulars. The further particulars might 
be furnished by the American newspaper already 
referred to, — as a type of newspaper. England has 
countless kindred papers. But the supreme art of 
the business is French, — the Charivari, the Figaro, 
the Petit Journal pour Rire, etc. 

What do they tell us? I think it is this: That the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 79 

Western Civilization is steeped in an atmosphere of 
artificially created . . . passionalism. That all art 
and all literature open to common comprehension 
are directed to the Eternal Feminine. That our 
pleasures, the theatre, the opera, the marvels of 
sculpture and painting, the new musical faculty, — 
all are shapen with a view to the stimulation of sex- 
ual idealism. Nay, the luxury of it, — the volup- 
tuousness, — betrays itself in the smallest details 
of business or invention, — from the portrait of 
an actress or ballet-dancer on a package of cigar- 
ettes, to the frescoes of a Government building; 
from a child's toy, to the bronze lamp upheld by a 
splendid nude at the foot of a palace stairway. If 
the God of the West is Money, it is only because 
money is the Pandarus that holds Cressida's key. 
In education, indeed, our object is to delay puberty 
and its emotions as long as possible, — so as to store 
up force in the individual. We lie, dupe, conceal, 
play hypocrite for a good purpose. But when the 
children become men and women, they are sud- 
denly plunged into an atmosphere full of the Eter- 
nal Feminine, and for the rest of life they can escape 
it only by fleeing to some less civilized country. 
Of the evils thus produced, nothing need be here 
said. They are only the accidents; — they don't 
explain matters. 

Now your Japanese thinks it indecent even to 
talk about his wife, and at least impolite to talk 
about his children. This does n't mean he is with- 
out affection at all. The affection is all right, — but 
the mere mention of it, he thinks, suggests other 



80 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

matters, — unfortunate necessities of existence. He 
introduces his wife to a European, simply because 
he has heard it is the strange and barbarous Western 
custom to do such things; but otherwise his women 
live in shadow, by themselves. They are used to 
it, — would be unhappy or awkward if pulled out 
of it. He does not mention his marriage, except to 
a few intimates invited to the wedding; and still 
more rarely the birth of his child, — for obvious 
reasons. An English novel (of the Trollope sort) 
would seem to him a monstrous morbid piece of 
nonsense. A Parisian ballet would seem to him worse 
than ever any Methodist minister deemed it. And 
he would hold at sight any Japanese Joro more mod- 
est than the Society belle who shows her shoulders 
above the lace-fringe of an evening dress. His at- 
mosphere is cool and without illusion. His artists 
succeed best with nature and least with man. We 
are all opposite. Which is the best condition for 
future intellectual expansion .^^ 

(I am only hazarding all this.) At present the con- 
dition of passional thought in the West does seem to 
me morbid, exasperating. But I think it does more 
than evil. It is a creative force in the highest sense. 
I think so. The process is slow, and accompanied 
with ugly accidents. But the results will perhaps 
be vast. All this woman-worship and sex-worship 
is tending to develop to a high degree certain moral 
qualities. As the pleasure of colour has been devel- 
oped out of perceptions created by appetite, so out 
of vague sense of physical charm a sense of spiritual 
charm is being evolved. The result must be rather 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 81 

elevating and refining at last, than gross and selfish. 
It seems the latter to one who looks, — say at that 
American newspaper. But just as uncultivated 
minds like the force of raw bright colors, and care 
nothing for delicate tints, — so imperfectly culti- 
vated minds need strong coarse impulses to bestir 
them in emotional directions. I think the general 
direction is one of gentleness, nervous sympathy, 
generosity. There is surely a vast reserve of tender- 
ness in even our roughest Western natures, that 
comes out only in the shocks of life, as fire from flint. 
By tenderness I don't mean simple woman-loving, 
sexual inclination, but something higher developed 
out of that more primitive loving, etc., — sensibility, 
comprehension, readiness to do for the weak on im- 
pulse. I can't see this in the Orient, — except among 
the women. Did you not say that the Japanese 
woman preserved the purity and grace of the native 
tongue.'^ Well, I think she has preserved also the 
whole capacity of the race for goodness, — all 
locked up within her. . . . 

And here my pessimistic epistle shall close. 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. — The main point I wish to suggest is this, — 
that in order to understand Japan, the sexual ques- 
tion must be very carefully considered, as a factor 
in forming psychological differences. This subject 
is too large for me; but a man like Lowell might do 
much with it. I am afraid to try. Lowell has once 
alluded to it: but I don't think it is a mere side issue. 



82 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

April 17, 1893, 

Dear Chamberlain, — I am beginning to think 
I was a great fool to write a book about Japan at all. 
My best consolation is that every year other peo- 
ple write books about Japan on the strength of a 
trip only; — and that excuse is very bad. A friend, 
who never minces matters, speaks to me thus : — 

"You think you were very kindly treated in 
Izumo?" 

"Oh, yes!" 

"And that you have not been kindly treated in 

Kumamoto. Very well, — that is natural. But do 

I you know why you were kindly treated in Izumo.^" 

"Well, I should like to get your opinion." 

"Simply because you were a new thing, — there- 
fore a wonderful and a strange thing. Everybody 
wanted to see you; you were a curiosity; — so they 
invited you everywhere, tried to please you, showed 
you everything. That was their way of gratifying 
their curiosity. They did it as politely as they could, 
so as to leave a pleasant impression. Also, they are 
very simple people there, and thought you much 
wiser and greater than you really are. So they asked 
your opinion about things, and published your opin- 
ions in the paper, — did n't they?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, that was all simply because you seemed 
to them a wonderful and curious person. But in 
Kumamoto you are not a wonderful or curious per- 
son. The public are accustomed to foreigners of va- 
rious kinds, and the Kumamoto folk live in the routes 
of travel. As for the teachers, all are Tokyo men, — 



• TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 83 

perfectly familiar with foreigners. You cannot ap- 
pear to them in any new role that would interest 
them. You are not interesting to them at all; and 
they are not simple, foolish people, like the Izumo 
folk. Also they are not agonizingly polite. It is an 
old Kyushu tradition not to be; it is thought to be 
weak, flabby, unmanly. You won't find these peo- 
ple bowing and scraping to you." 

"That is true." 

*'They don't even do it to each other. They stand 
off from each other. They don't think foreigners 
any better than themselves. And you will find it 
the same if you go to any other civilized part of Ja- 
pan. In a place like Izumo, out of the line of rail- 
roads, you are interesting to the ignorant folk be- 
cause you are a foreigner." 

"Hm." 

"Yes; but in other parts of Japan you are uninter- 
esting for the very same reason. To educated Jap- 
anese you cannot be interesting. You cannot talk 
to them; you don't understand their ways, — don't 
belong to their life. You are not a show, or a nov- 
elty; you are only a teacher, — with nothing re- 
markable to recommend you to strangers. But you 
are not less well treated, — perhaps much better 
treated, than you would be elsewhere in civilized 
Japan. " 

"But why didn't you tell me all this before?" 

"Simply because I did not want to spoil your 
pleasure. You were very happy, were n't you.^^ But 
you would not have been so happy if I had told you 
before. I tell you so now simply as a sort of conso- 



84 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

lation. It was better for you not to know in Izumo. 
It is better for you to know in Kumamoto." 

"Yes, but my book is all wrong." 

"Why all wrong? Doesn't it express a real ef- 
fect; — the effect of the efforts of people to please 
you? And they were really sincere in that, — though 
not exactly because they thought you all that you 
imagined they thought you. If you described your 
own feelings, the book will be in that sense true. 
But if you write about Japanese character, of course 
you will be mistaken. You do not know it. Indeed 
I do not believe you could ever learn it. It seems 
to me natural that you should not. It would seem 
to me a miracle that you should." 

This is the sum and substance of information that 
takes the starch out of me, but is really very con- 
soling. It is always consoling to stand upon solid 
ground, even if the prospect is not delightful, after 
a voyage in seas of delusions and mysteries. 

The educational question is growing upon me. 
The other day a young man, — the cleverest in his 
class, wrote me these words: — 

"When I think of my child-studies, my first days 
at school, I can hardly avoid despair. Embarrass- 
ments have come; — I feel my bodily energy slipping 
away; my diligent spirit is gone; my brain seems dull, 
feeble, and unrenewable. [He means worn out, but 
there is a pathetic force of expression in the mistake.] 
And the more I am dismayed, the worse I become in 
all things. I feel a destruction gathering over me. 
But who made all this so? I think it was my negli- 
gence; — that I have no one to blame but myself." 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 85 

All this seems to be very pathetic. A young brain 
is wearing out from overwork; and the student ac- 
cuses himself of not studying hard enough, — to- 
tally ignorant of the fact that he is quietly killing 
himself. Some day I expect to call his name, and 
get no answer. It is not the first call, nor the tenth. 
But it is the first time I have seen the feelings of the 
struggle so simply expressed, with such amazing 
artlessness. 

The dehcate souls pass away; the rough stay on 
and triumph. As Spencer says, "the first requisite 
to any success, is to be a good animal." Students 
have the superstition that strong will is enough. 
They ought to be taught better, for simple human- 
ity's sake. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 19, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Really I never want 
any better consolation for blues than a letter from 
you, and the occasional indulgence of my own feel- 
ings in a letter. This latter indulgence I think ex- 
cusable only because truly reactions are an inevi- 
table part of life in the Orient, and have therefore 
something more than a purely personal meaning. 

But the mental blues are gone, and instead of 
them comes a blaze of blue light, true summer color, 
into the room where the stove was. For the winter 
partition and the stove itself have been removed, 
and the room is open to the sky and to a burst of 
blossom-splendor from the garden. I had no idea 



86 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

what wealth of flowers I had, there are fully forty 
kinds. Also the grass of my garden has changed 
from yellow to soft green. — Oh! do you remember 
the awful dead-yellow of those stagey, humpy, pokey 
hills in Luizenji garden, — that looked just as if 
they had been sheered out of dead wood, and painted 
with yellow ochre?? I suppose even they are green 
now; but I am much too afraid of them to go and 
see. 

I fear I can't get so far away from Kumamoto as 
you kindly suggest. There will be batches of proofs 
coming every ten days, and such a trip, to be en- 
joyed at all, would take much more time. The ten 
days would barely give me one half hour's chat with 
you at Miyanoshita; and that would only make me 
hungry for more. The most I expect to attempt will 
be a short run to Nagasaki. Of all this I am not 
indeed quite sure; but the mail will soon enlighten 
me. 

I am sending another batch of novels to Mason; 
you will have time to read them at Mij^anoshita 
anyhow, later on. Tell him to read "La Pecheuse 
d'Ames" last. I fear you will not like it for two rea- 
sons: — it is bloody, and the incidents seem improb- 
able. Bloody it certainly is, and in places too theat- 
rical; — yet in a country which produced such a sect 
as the Skopsi (is n't that the name?) what might 
not be possible? 

I read Anstey's "Giant's Robe," the other day, 
having bought the book because of a reference to it 
in one of Kipling's tales. It is clever, in a way; but 
it is not real art, I think. Seems to me the English 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 87 

public are easily satisfied; give them a new plot, 
and the rest does n't matter. The success of " Called 
Back" seems to be a disgrace to public taste. 

Another thing I read was Dickens's "Loyal 
League." I was perfectly astounded by some of his 
notes. He calls Kwannon "the Buddie (!) Venus." 
Is n't that enough to make one shriek.? The im- 
pression of the whole story is very unpleasant as he 
tells it; for that reason, I prefer Mitford's version. 
But whether the Japanese original is also so emo- 
tionally hard and coarse as Dickens makes it, I am 
in doubt. 

After having been for three years shaved in re- 
ligious silence by a being with a face like Buddha, 
I felt (the other day) a sort of regret for the Ameri- 
can barber who parts his hair in the middle, and 
insists on telling you all about his girl. I used to 
think him a frightful plague. But now the memory 
of him becomes almost . . . no, positively grateful. 

I have been trying to think exactly what I was 
doing just at the time you came to Japan; and I re- 
member now that I was writing a story for a weekly 
family paper which never paid anybody. The story 
was a serial. The idea was about a man manufactured 
by chemistry, — an indestructible man, who ate 
nothing but diamond dust and steel filings. I car- 
ried that man through various chapters of modern 
life, — made him sit down with impunity upon cir- 
cular saws, and pass through all sorts of conflagra- 
tions, battles, and dynamite explosions. After which 
I was puzzled what to do with him. He could not 
be killed; yet it was necessary to make him disap- 



88 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

pear. Wherefore, I had him swallowed up by an 
earthquake. Little did I know at that time what an 
earthquake was. I wanted to know. Butnowlhave 
a really disgusting fear of earthquakes. 

Yes, work is the greatest happiness, voluntary 
pleasant work, with the certainty of creating sym- 
pathy. I wonder if I shall ever be able to do any 
more of it. I have begun many things, but can't 
finish them; the question always comes up, — "But 
would he, or she, have such sensations or thoughts .^^ " 
And the answer is generally "No." Therefore my 
hope of "effects" is always withered up. An editor 
of a magazine offered me some time ago almost any 
terms for "A Japanese novel of three hundred pages 
or so." A Japanese novel .^ ? ? If I could only write 
one little baby sketch, and write the truth about 
the inside of an Oriental brain. But I can't. I won- 
der if Lowell could. His intuition is infinitely finer. 
This thing, however, seems to me something that 
intuition cannot give. A general theory will not do 
here. If there were absolute fatalism, stolidity, in- 
sensibility, — one could do — anything. But every- 
thing I first suspect the absence of, always turns 
out at a later day to exist, only in a peculiar way, 
like a blue moon, or a tree with scarlet leaves. So 
I don't know what to do. I am in literary despair. 
Perhaps I had better resign myself to write of dead 
suns, — old memories of queer places where the rule 
of thinking was at least Aryan. 

The old man's festival the other day was rather 
a nice affair. Many Chinese poems were composed 
in his honour. Then a poem which he himself com- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 89 

posed was solemnly sung. Next day a servant 
brought to me a porcelain wine-cup, in which was 
lined in golden text the old man's Chinese poem. 
(I had sent a gift of wine to the feast.) But I know 
not at all the emotions of the occasion, — nor will 
I even know in heaven, since my soul or souls must 
wander back to its or their own kindred. Buddha 
would never let me into his Paradise, because I can't 
understand. 

I wish you and I together could travel to Izumo 
some day. It rejoices me much to hear you are get- 
ting strong. But you can't take too much care of 
your throat, in this horrid weather. It may be per- 
fectly frank in the Tokaido region; but I can swear 
it is almost as treacherous as Atlantic weather here. 
One hour the hills are sharp as amethyst crystals in 
a cloudless sky, — the next, they are invisible; and 
there is furious wind and rain. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 28, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... I had a treat for 
you, but as you have no time to read, I'll send it to 
Mason instead. "Le Roman d'un Enfant." It 
seems to me very nearly the best thing Loti has 
written, and will give you a better opinion of him. 
Indeed I think it is a sacred book in its way. 
vv Your criticism on my letter is penetrating. But 
in the interval an audacious idea has been taking 
visible shape in my mind, — definitely, strongly, — 
upsetting all my other ideas about the future of 



90 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

West and East. Perhaps I may venture to bring it 
out some day. But it will be a hard piece of work, — 
as I must give scientific records for every point taken. 
It is this : — That the larger brained and nervously 
more complex races of the West must give way at 
last to the races of the East, — and that Buddhism 
in some form will exist after Christianity and Chris- 
tian civilizations have vanished. The argument 
must be based first of all upon the enormous cost 
of individuation to the West, compared with the 
future cost of equally efficient (for sociological pur- 
poses) individuation to — say the Chinese. Vast 
races of highly complex creatures have already dis- 
appeared from the world simply because of the enor- 
mous costliness of their structures. The evolution 
of machinery furnishes certain parallels for study in 
the question of economy of force and economy of 
expenditure. Then there will be artificial condi- 
tions to consider, as set in antagonism to purely nat- 
ural but equally eflScient conditions. Of course the 
question of the survival of races is that of the sur- 
vival of the fittest. But are we, as you suggest ask- 
ingly, are we the fittest? The fittest life is that 
capable of meeting all exterior influences inimical 
to it by interior adjustments of its own powers. Are 
we most able to do that.^^ I think we are now, — 
but only because we avail ourselves of artificial means 
to oppose to natural forces. We do this by intellec- 
tual cunning. But that intellectual power is obtained 
by us only at so vast a cost, that it can only belong 
to a very few. Given the same powers to the select 
of a race to whom the cost of being and thinking 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 91 

has been made by nature and habit infinitely less, — 
and what will we be in the competition? Less than 
nothing. The forces of national expansion are ag- 
gressive forces and very costly ones. But they do 
not represent the highest of our powers. The high- 
est of our powers are of no use or meaning in self 
preservation and race contest. And the aggressive 
powers in our races are the most easily imitated and 
acquired by those nations we call inferior and bar- 
barous. But that's enough to bore you with. I only 
suggest an outline of what I mean. In that case 
Japan ought to tie her future to China, when cir- 
cumstances render that possible. Buddha will be 
safe anyhow. 

Good-bye, with sincerest wishes that you take 
the best possible care of yourself for a while, 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

May 2, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — First let me thank you 
and Mason for that delightful telegram, — a shake- 
hands over a thousand miles; it was extremely kind 
and pretty of you. 

I have just got your letter about the globe trot- 
ter. I know the horrid person only too well ; — I sym- 
pathize with you. There is only one way to do with 
such animals when one is obliged to be with them. 
Each and all know something, of course, which en- 
ables them to travel ; — you can make them talk about 
themselves, about "grub," about. . . . But I beg 
pardon, really that would not do for a respectable 



92 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

gentleman to talk about. What I meant to say was 
the way I have to do with them. I know the animal ; 
I know its machinery; I hint to it of things unholy, 
— and at once it gets wound up, unrolls, and utters 
its heart's music. I do this because I can't talk to 
it. I make it talk to itself until it gets tired and goes 
away. And sometimes, though not always, there is 
literary material to be extracted from its artless vul- 
garity and its sense of greatness. 

What you say about letters that coulent de source 
I feel strong sympathy with for two reasons. In the 
first place letters not spontaneous give one the no- 
tion that the writer feels a certain distrust in aban- 
doning his thoughts to paper, and consequently has 
not towards his friend that perfect feeling which 
casts out fear. The second is that the receiver is also 
forced into a certain constraint and artificialness in his 
replies; — then the matter becomes a mere drudgery. 
Of course there are other cases, — such as the very 
curious one you suggest, which I take to be ruled 
by a sort of aesthetic formality, — the reluctance 
of the artist to be for a moment inartistic, like Theo- 
phile Gautier answering a reproach about not writ- 
ing by the phrase: "Ask a carpenter to plane a few 
planks for fun." (I have not heard of Lowell at all 
as yet, except through the reference you make to a 
visit from him; consequently I suppose he changed 
his mind about Kumamoto.) 

I said in my last that your criticism about one 
of my suggestions was penetrating. It proves so 
more than I fancied. The disintegration of the fam- 
ily must continually increase, must it not? under 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 93 

the continual stimulus of this universal Western 
passion. Then there must ensue a continually aug- 
menting contempt for old age and its wisdom in the 
things of life, — and a universal irreverence for all 
things truly worthy of reverence. The ultimate re- 
sults seem to point to social disintegration. But I 
am not a trained thinker, and not a scientist. I fear 
one needs to be both in order to treat this extraor- 
dinary sexual and social question. I can only dare 
to attempt suggestions ; it requires a power like Low- 
ell's to synthetize all the huge mass of facts, and 
dash a cosmic idea out of them. 

I cannot help thinking this idea of throwing open 
Japan to mixed residence is sheer wickedness. To 
do so would be, I sincerely believe, a monstrous crime. 
Pride and conceit are steering the Japanese that 
way. They over-estimate their force. They are 
enormously strong while they remain conservative. 
But to introduce into the vitals of their nationality 
the most active possible elements of dissolution 
seems to me suicidal. I trust the race instinct will 
prevent it. Otherwise Lowell's prediction will prove, 
perhaps, true, — that the race will vanish from the 
earth. Of what importance to refuse the sale of 
land to foreigners, and yet leave them free to make 
other investments large enough to involve a pos- 
sibility of international quarrel. The admission of 
foreigners to Japan is only the other side of the ques- 
tion of the admission of Chinese to America. The 
Chinaman is dreaded because of his power to under- 
live the white; — the white is equally to be dreaded 
because of his ability to over-live the Oriental. One 



94 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

race can squeeze out the other; the other crushes 
and absorbs. But what can prevent the danger? 
certainly not the howl of one small writer like me. 
Those wonderful Russo-Jewish novels I hoped to 
make you read have come. I am enraged to think 
you have no time to read. Of course it's no use to 
send them now. Only tell me when you get hungry 
for something strange, powerful, and unexpected. 
Ever with best wishes, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



May 12, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — In the dead vast and 
middle of last night there came a telegram from 
Lowell, saying that he had sent a letter sixteen days 
ago, and to enquire therefor. I enquired as soon as 
possible, sending my little boy to the P. O. When 
he had delivered his message, instead of replying, 
the P. O. asked: — 

"What is your name.'^" 

"Kumagae Nasayoshi." 

"Naruhodo! And you are in the house of the 
Sensei.f'" 

"Yes." 

"Naruhodo! And of course you speak much 
English.?" 

"No." 

"Naruhodo! But you are not of Kumamoto.f^" 

"No." 

"Naruhodo! You are from the West.^" 

"Izumo." 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 95 

"Ya! The people of Shimane are curious people. 
There is one in our P. O.; you know him." 

"No, I do not." 

"Naruhodo! The people of Shimane say *fu- 
bachi, f utatsu, fugashi'; they say 'jiji; ji-roku'; — 
they say 'sanji' for 'sanjui.' Ah yes!" 

""^But the letter.?" 

" The Sensei received a telegram.'* 

"Yes." 

"The letter was sent — when?" 

"Sixteen days ago." 

" Naruhodo ! Then it could not possibly have come 
to Kumamoto. To come to Kumamoto and not be 
quickly delivered is, for a letter, exceedingly diffi- 
cult. We know all about the letters of the Sensei; we 
count them. Exceedingly very many there are. He 
gets letters daily. To-day, as you know, he got one? " 

"Yes." 

"Then the reason of the not seeing of the letter 
the Sensei desires is not difficult to understand. " 

"It is difficult." 

"Oh, not. It is not difficult. The reason is sim- 
ply that the letter never came to Kumamoto." 

"Ah!" 

"For having once come to Kumamoto it should 
have immediately been delivered." 

"Ah!" 

"But since it did not come, it could not have been 
delivered." 

"Thanks." 

"And therefore, not having been delivered, the 
Sensei did not receive it." 



96 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

"Thanks." 

*'What have I done, etc." 

To dispute the premises would have been quite 
useless, — so accepting the conclusion I prepared 
an elaborate telegram. The address upon Mr. Low- 
ell's telegram was simply "Kokumeikwan." Masa 
trotted off again to the heart of the town. The tele- 
graph man disputed the address. Such an address 
would not suffice, — would give at the other end 
of the line enormous tribulation. For to send a tele- 
gram to Kokumeikwan was like unto sending a tele- 
gram to Tokyo, — to Japan, — to the whole Orient, 
— to the whole of this vale of tears. And I suppose 
it best to address you on the subject, as you have an 
address of a sharply defined character. I think you 
told me that Lowell, like many another literary man, 
dislikes writing letters. I am especially sorry there- 
fore for the mystery of the letter in question; it is 
discouraging and demoralizing, and would justify 
him in swearing by the eight hundred myriads of 
the Gods never to write another letter again for the 
rest of his life. 

I have your kind letter about "Chita," etc. That 
you could read the book at all, is some encourage- 
ment, — that is, persuades me that at some far- 
distant time, by toning down the thing, some of it 
might be preserved in a new edition. But I feel it is 
terribly overdone. You are right, too, about Miss 
Bacon's severe and rather dry style. It has power, 
and it never tires, if the subject be of interest. A 
poetical style is only justifiable in the treatment of 
rare, exotic subjects. Those are the subjects I most 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 97 

love, however; — how I envy my cousins in India, who 
will never write a line in their lives. I would give 
ten years of life for one year in India; — I can't ever 
hope to get it. But a host of small relations, to 
whom it is a mere source of living, cannot only get 
any number of years in India, but can blaspheme 
the Gods at being obliged to live in such a blasted 
country. 

What an education the Orient is! How it opens 
a man's eyes and mind about his own country, about 
conventionalisms of a hundred sorts, — about false 
ideals and idealisms, — about ethical questions. 
But it is a bitter life. I am ashamed to say, I feel 
worn out. Ancestral habit and impulse are too 
strong in me. I never understood how profoundly 
a man can be isolated even in the midst of an ami- 
able population. I get letters from relations in Eng- 
land that make my soul turn, not sky-blue, but in- 
digo. I must be able to travel again some day, — 
to alternate Oriental life with something else. And 
I am not without hope that will prove some day 
possible. 

I wonder if I am right in thinking the Tempo 
men larger brained than the present University 
men. Somehow or other, the most highly educated 
Japanese strike me as pitiably small when it comes 
to thinking about any subject whatever; — they talk 
like boys of fourteen or fifteen years of age. They 
have no grasp of questions; — no conception of rela- 
tions. It is impossible to talk with them at all. Now 
the old men whom I have met were of a larger breed. 
They thought in a narrow circle, — but fully, and 



98 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

originally, and well, so far as I could divine from 
interpretation. They gave me ideas. The class I am 
now in contact with have no ideas. Under such 
studies as they have made, their brains seemed to 
have shrivelled up like kernels in roasted nuts. When 
they try to talk there is only a dry rattle. Perpet- 
ual questions about things that a new-born babe 
ought to know; and withal a conceit as high as the 
moon ; — an ineradicable belief that they have mas- 
tered all the knowledge of the nineteenth century, — 
and that a foreigner is a sort of stupid servant to be 
used, but never to be treated as a real human being. 

The other day I wrote a long article about Jap- 
anese students, intending to send it to the Mail, a 
plea for them; but reading it over I came to the 
conclusion I did not know enough about the sub- 
ject of educational organization. Everything is kept 
concealed as much as possible from a foreign teacher. 
Some day when I get more information, I may try 
to develop the theme in another way. I think the 
present system is dead wrong; — I think so by its 
results. The boys are overworked. The standard 
is low; the years are wasted. But who would thank 
me for proving it.f^ 

We had a curious contradiction in official theo- 
ries the other day. One minister tells the Governors 
if there be trouble in their provinces they are re- 
sponsible. The other minister tells students if they 
are dissatisfied the fault is their own. That the per- 
petual change of governors and teachers and di- 
rectors, — the general flux of national disintegra- 
tion, — must lead to large troubles, never seems to 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 99 

occur to these great statesmen. They are pitiably 
small; to judge by their idea of applying law to re- 
sults instead of remedies to deeply seated and ever- 
increasing causes. For the first time I feel like 
saying, "D — n Japan!" After all, the loss of her na- 
tionality might not be the worst fate for her. What 
a blue letter. I am ashamed. 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

May 30, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your criticism about my 
idea of a volume of stories delights me. 

But I am not insensible to the comic side. I want 
the best of anything I can get in that direction. I 
want it, however, under reservations. 

In the "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," I think 
you will find something more than pathos. I think 
you may have found something more than the minor 
key even in the West Indian Sketches. But — be- 
sides the fact that I know the narrow limitations 
of my own power, I have an artistic theory about 
comedy. 

For sincere work I think comedy should always 
be very close to tears, — as it is in real life. Shadow 
and sun make the picture. The strongest possible 
pathos is created by the use of comedy in the proper 
time and place. 

But it is very hard to do this. Those who have 
been able to do it well are the giants. Take Heine's 
work; what is the nervous power of it; surely, aside 
from mere verbal art and fancy, it is in this very 
thing. He amuses, caresses, brings tears; then with 



100 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

a lightning flash of sarcasm he illuminates the bit- 
ter gulfs. Or the mockery first, and then the pathos. 
I don't think the Elizabethan writers knew this art; 
they had to introduce fools and mad people to off- 
set tragedy. It seems to me an art yet undeveloped. 
Most men can work safely only in one direction, — 
having but one faculty powerfully developed. Heine 
had two; — but he was only half alive in his best 
years. I think myself a book all in one key is weak. 
I should like to venture at work in two. But I am 
small. I am groping and don't know. All I can say 
is, — Any and every suggestion I can get during the 
next two years will be gold and diamonds. 

The little follies, the childish errors, the blunders 
and mistakes of life, do not however make me laugh. 
I cannot laugh at the real, — unless it 's offensive. 
Rather all these things seem to me infinitely pa- 
thetic; the comedy of them is the tragedy played by 
human children before the Unknown. In an ar- 
tistic sketch, I think the comedy ought not to pro- 
voke more than a smile. But hard and fast rules are 
out of the question. And what would the Japanese 
say.'' They don't understand. I once ventured a 
jest in Izumo about the ancient Gods, — in the 
presence of one who did not believe. It was an in- 
nocent jest, too, — not derogatory to the Gods. 
But, — well, I never tried it again; not even when 
I heard much racier jests made by the same per- 
son. 

I am not good, I fear, like you. I do not always 
give gentle answers, which is a sign of strength, but 
nasty ones, which is a sign of weakness. However, 



TO BASIL HALL CHAJVIBERLAIN 101 

I have lately effected a compromise with myself. 
I think this way: — "Assuredly, the people who ask 
you so impertinently to do things for money, con- 
ceive that money is an all-fired great consideration 
with you, — because it is with them. To undeceive 
them would injure their feelings, — stab them in 
the only place where they have any feelings. Where- 
fore it were more Christian to answer them accord- 
ing to their kind. An answer of this sort cannot sat- 
isfy them altogether, but it will teach them respect 
for you." 

Therefore when I am asked, for example, to write 
letters for a particular sort of patronizing newspa- 
per, "I am very grateful, dear Sir, for your kindly 
appreciation of my work, and for your courteous 
offer. In answer to your question about terms, I 
may say, that, although now unusually occupied, I 
hope to find time to write you a few letters on the 
following conditions: One thousand dollars in gold 
per letter, — to be paid in each case in advance, — 
by draft on London, — and copyright of letters to 
be secured in the name of my publishers, at your 
expense, — which, of course, will be trifling. Trust- 
ing, my dear sir, etc." 

Now, if they really agree to the terms, they would 
be worth the while. If they don't, it is all the same, 
— except that they will see even an author loves 
money, and esteems himself at the right value. Of 
course, that is only me. You ought to charge enor- 
mous rates, and you might get them. Some years 
ago in New York, when there was no Russian Sec- 
retary, a Russian document had to be translated 



102 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

in a hurry. There was only one man in New York 
then who could do the work, and the man knew it. 
The legend is that he charged $10,000 and got it. 
If you write a perfumery ad. in Chinese for those 
people you ought to charge enough to elevate the 
price of the perfume bottles 150 p. c. ? .^^ .'^ The fun 
of all this is that I, who write it, can't get any big 
prices for anything yet. By dint of pretended scorn, 
perhaps some day I shall get a gold mine all to my- 
self. 

Best wishes ever and thanks, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



June 1, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — x\n idea has been growing 
upon me, which you will perhaps think crazy, — but 
it may be at least worth mentioning. It is this : — 

Does it follow that because the Japanese mind — 
(shaped by ancestral habits of imagination and 
thought totally different from our own) — remains 
insensible to much we esteem, that it is in this re- 
spect altogether undeveloped? 

Of course I grant the musical question, and all 
that. But — may not our sensibility to certain 
classes of impressions be morbid.'^ Might not mpr- 
bid sensibility be a racial as well as an individual 
outcome of high pressure civilization.'' 

For instance, much we deem heroic, they con- 
sider merely a matter of course. I am not prepared 
now to illustrate the matter much further: — it is 
only a suggestion. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 103 

Funny things have been happening here. Two 
natives sold some ground to a Romish mission- 
ary. He obtained it only after great difficulty, and 
after having been roughly refused by many very 
poor citizens, although the price offered was quite 
big. The papers published with high praise the 
names of those who refused, among others, that 
of my former landlord who ironically offered his 
ground at ten thousand yen per square foot. Then 
the papers turned their attention to the sellers. The 
one was a doctor, the other a photographer. They 
were put into print as worse than beasts. The pa- 
pers traced up their private history. The doctor had 
been a fraud, — married a widow for money and 
swindled her. With the money he had started prac- 
tice. But he was a charlatan; and only dogs en- 
tered his house. Dogs slept in his office; and no pa- 
tients went thither. Daily other revelations about 
him are being published. To-day is the fifth day. 
There were nearly eight columns of the matter in 
one of the dailies. But four dailies are at the 
work. 

As for the photographer, he is declared to be poor 
shakes. In his gallery there is always dust and si- 
lence; and the place is festooned with the webs of 
spiders immemorially old. He is also tasting the 
bitterness of life. 

The missionary started in, of course, by giving 
money to children. Some children refused it with 
scorn. The papers published their names. And a 
merchant, reading the same in some distant city, 
sent to one of the children, — a little girl, — a pretty 



104 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

silk handkerchief, and a letter full of commenda- 
tions and of good advice. 

And I rather like all this. The men who sell their 
ground to missionaries or sell their religion, are usu- 
ally bad or weak and worthless characters. That 
is evident enough, — as they are acting against the 
Japanese conscience and against what they know 
to be national opinion. But why all this rage against 
the Bateren.'^ Is he any worse than the other for- 
eigners.'^ What is the distinction made by the Jap- 
anese mind.'^ And why do the papers elsewhere 
say nothing about sales of land to Protestant mis- 
sionaries.'^ Of course the thing is, strictly speaking, 
illegal ; besides which it is, from the Japanese point, 
morally wrong. But why strain at the gnat and 
swallow the camel .f^ 

A queer Buddhist idea was given to me the other 
day. (I would like to find out more about it; but I 
must wait to get out of Kyushu in order to attempt 
Buddhist work.) The idea is this: — Do not be angry 
or indulge secretly any wicked thought! Why.'^ be- 
cause the anger or the wicked thought, though se- 
cret and followed by no action, may go out into the 
universe as an unseen influence and therein cause evil. 
In other words, a man might be responsible for a 
murder committed at a great distance by one whom 
he does not even know. Weak, unbalanced minds, 
trembling between crime and conscience, may be 
decided suddenly to evil by the straw weight of an 
unseen influence. 

I never heard this before. It is certainly worth 
following up. I don't wish to give it away, — ex- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 105 

cept to you. Now the fact is, that the more I think 
about it, the more it seems to me that — it may 
be true. Don't think me quite mad, but beheve 

me. 

Ever faithfully yours, 

Lapcadio Hearn. 



June 5. 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Thanks for strictures 
and suggestions. I changed the text as you desired, 
except in the case of the word Kuruma. That has 
been fully explained in preceding articles. (By the 
way, I never heard a Japanese use the word jin- 
rikisha.) My observations about the sailors were 
based upon police reports in the Japan Mail. I killed 
the word gwaikokujin ; as you said, it is an ugly word. 
I revised, indeed, the whole paper. 

Recognizing the ugliness of words, however, you 
must also recognize their physiognomical beauty. 
I see you and the Editor of the Atlantic are at one, 
however, in condemning my use of Japanese words. 
Now, I can't entirely agree with either of you. As 
to the practical side of the question, I do. But as 
to the artistic, the romantic side, I don't. For me 
words have colour, form, character; they have faces, 
ports, manners, gesticulations; they have moods, 
humours, eccentricities ; — they have tints, tones, per- 
sonalities. That they are unintelligible makes no 
difference at all. Whether you are able to speak to 
a stranger or not, you can't help being impressed 
by his appearance sometimes, — by his dress, — by 
his air, — by his exotic look. He is also unintelli- 



106 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

gible, but not a whit less interesting. Nay! he is 
interesting because he is uninteUigible. I won't 
cite other writers who have felt the same way about 
African, Chinese, Arabian, Hebrew, Tartar, Indian, 
and Basque words, — I mean novelists and sketch 
writers. 

To such it has been justly observed : — "The readers 
do not feel as you do about words. They can't be 
supposed to know that you think the letter A is blush- 
crimson, and the letter E pale sky-blue. They can't 
be supposed to know that you think KH wears a 
beard and a turban ; that initial X is a mature Greek 
with wrinkles; — or that * — no — ' has an inno- 
cent, lovable, and childlike aspect." All this is true 
from the critic's standpoint. 

But from ours, the standpoint of — 

The dreamer of dreams 
To whom what is and what seems 
Is often one and the same, — 

To us the idea is thus: — 

"Because people cannot see the colour of words, 
the tints of words, the secret ghostly motions of 
words : — 

"Because they cannot hear the whispering of 
words, the rustling of the procession of letters, the 
dream-flutes and dream-drums which are thinly and 
weirdly played by words: — 

"Because they cannot perceive the pouting of 
words, the frowning and fuming of words, the weep- 
ing, the raging and racketing and rioting of words : — 

"Because they are insensible to the phospho- 
rescing of words, the fragrance_of words, the noisome- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 107 

ness of words, the tenderness or hardness, the dry- 
ness or juiciness of words, — the interchange of 
values in the gold, the silver, the brass and the cop- 
per of words : — 

"Is that any reason why we should not try to 
make them hear, to make them see, to make them 
feel? Surely one who has never heard Wagner, can- 
not appreciate Wagner without study! Why should 
the people not be forcibly introduced to foreign 
words, as they were introduced to tea and coffee and 
tobacco?" 

Unto which, the friendly reply is, — "Because 
they won't buy your book, and you won't make any 
money." 

And I say: — "Surely I have never yet made, and 
never expect to make any money. Neither do I ex- 
pect to write ever for the multitude. I write for 
beloved friends who can see colour in words, can 
smell the perfume of syllables in blossom, can be 
shocked with the fine elfish electricity of words. And 
in the eternal order of things, words will eventually 
have their rights recognized by the people." 

All this is heresy. But a bad reason, you will 
grant, is better than — etc. 

Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — You have heard of Com- 
posite Photographs, and know their value. Here 
is a composite composition, — the closing examina- 
tion theme. I have made no changes, — only taken 
sentences from various compositions. 



108 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

The Story of Tithonus. 

"Tithonus was a youth very handsome and polite. 

"Aurora was the rosy -fingered Goddess of the 
Dawn, — a very fine young lady with rosy fingers. 

"She was used to got up in the earlier morning 
every day, and she was very studious. 

"She follen in love to Tithonus, and by her chariot 
taked him up to the sky. 

"One day she ask to him that, — 'Sir, I can give 
you all thing you want.' Then he ask to her that, — 
'Please give me the eternal life.' 

"Hoping to enjoy the eternal life of her husband, 
Aurora ask to Zeus, Father of all the Gods; 

"And soon the eternal life was bestow on Tithonus. 

"But Aurora forget to request for the eternal 
youth ; therefore Tithonus have the only eternal life. 

" Gods have the eternality of youth as well as life. 

"Tithonus came to become thirty of fourty years 
of age. 

"He became every day more old. 

"He become totally old. 

"And felt the miseration of his life. 

"He became grieving and very confusing for weak- 
ness of the old. 

"Whenever he saw down from the seat of the sky 
a burial in mankind, he desire to die. 

"He became old till only the bones and skins had 
remained, — like a wet paper was put over the wood. 

"Aurora asked to Zeus to give her husband only 
one escapement of his torment by to die, — but in 
vain. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 109 

"Now Tithonus begged to the God to make him 
enable to die; but he was repulsed, — on that the 
God could not ever change his words. 

"To the last desire he begged the God to make 
him a glasshopper and to hop on the ground. 

"So for pity the God changed him into a glass- 
hopper, which could hop about our world. 

"And he is hop about the ground even now, and 
bears the dry looking. 

"O from a man becomed the husband of the God- 
dess, and then to be changed into a vile worm! 

"This should teach us well to ask never the in- 
consistent things." 

June 10, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Certainly the nasty ar- 
ticle of C. S. is discouraging, — not in itself, but as 
a type of much that is both written and unwritten. 
The supremely difficult task of the higher literature 
is to teach the public that idealism is not mere dis- 
torted fancy, imagination, rose-coloured spectacles, 

— but that it is penetrative, perceptive, reflective 
of eternal things. To educate public sensibility up 
to the point of comprehending great work, requires 
the time of at least a generation, — so that the true 
artist is but half understood in his life, unless he be 
quite small. The enemies of the human race are 
those who cry out that the work of the artist is a 
lie, and who clamour for ugliness, brutality, stench, 

— all that is capable of appealing to their own coarse 
nerves and vulgar brains. They can do more mis- 
chief in one hour, than an artist can do good in a life- 
time. And the railroads, the steamers, the mon- 



110 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

strous industrial and commercial expansion of our 
time, has placed every fair thing on earth within 
the reach of the vulgarian, the snob, the blackguard. 
The artistic future seems to me very dark. Should 
there be no thorough change or transformation of 
social conditions, — surely the feet must continue 
forever above the head. 

Much has been said against the over-sugared work 
of Arnold; and quite as much, I think, might be said 
against Loti's tremendous pictures of Kyoto. Yet, 
although such work, from its want of the supreme 
artistic quality, self-restraint, rather assists than 
combats the mere brutality of such scrawlers as 
C. S., — still those men see below the surface, touch 
truth, discern eternal beauty where it really lives, 
and are in harmony with the sympathies and pur- 
poses of art's Religion. It does not matter, in one 
sense, that they would offer to persuade us that 
their ore is pure metal; their error is on the side of 
the highest truth. Kipling's little sketch of Kama- 
kura is truer art; perfectly controlled, subtle, didac- 
tic. But I wonder if the mass of his readers can feel 
the delicacy of him. I fear they mostly seek the 
story only. And for one who can feel the beauty of 
that sketch of the Daibutsu, there will be a thou- 
sand to clap C. S. on the back as "a Christian and 
an Englishman." Surely it is uphill work now more 
than ever before to try to teach people to see truth 
and to feel beauty. 

You were a true artist in your last letter. Those 
musical terms describing colour — ("the deep bass'* 
of a certain green, etc.) greatly delighted me. You 
are often thus artistic in your letters. In your books 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 111 

you are severe. I suppose a scholar must refuse to 
indulge himself in colour and melody; his work is so 
much a work of compression, systematization, and 
solidity. Symonds — though so great a scholar — 
used to be pitched into in the most absurd way, be- 
cause he wrote like a poet. The critics seem to have 
an idea that a philologist, an Orientalist, a historian, 
etc., has no right to indulge in a lighter vein. If 
he does, they suspect his real work, — like that of 
Michelet, — like that of Taine. All of which is a 
sort of instinctive selfishness, perhaps, — the world 
crying to its teachers: "We only want to learn; if 
you study ornament, you won't have time to teach 
us enough." But I often think what charming light 
things you could write, if you tried. 

I am still doing nothing in the writing line. I am 
reading all I can. Have just finished Boswell, again; 
read Tennyson again, Byron, Scott, bits of Words- 
worth, Milton, Shelley, — all of Moliere, — with 
lighter stuff sandwiched in. When I am ready to do 
something, my style will be more flexible, I hope. 
By the way, have you read " La Cite Antique," by 
Fustel de Coulanges? I suppose you have. I am 
reading it for the second time, studying the curious 
parallels between the ancient Indo-Aryan family, 
home-worship, and beliefs, and those of Japan. In 
some matters the parallel is wonderful. 
Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. — If ever I get into a good place for it, I must 
begin Buddhist studies. I have a splendid idea for 
a popular book on the subject. 



112 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

June 14, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your letters of the 10th 
and 11th are before me, — two of the most dehght- 
ful letters I ever received. I shall always treasure 
them up. You will have found in a letter already 
sent you that your idea about the value of musical 
terms to describe colour " enthused " me at once. And 
nevertheless you were not the first to hint of it. Some 
four months ago I bought, with great expectations 
aroused by the title, — Symonds's "In the Key of 
Blue." I was utterly disappointed. The essay which 
gives its name to the book, and several other essays 
in which attempts are made to describe by colour 
words and musical words, are dead unintelligible 
failures. Though I reverence almost religiously the 
man who could have written that blazing splendid 
chapter on Sappho in the "Studies of the Greek 
Poets," I felt that I could name at least twenty 
writers, — small ones, — who could double-dis- 
count his effort in the Key of Blue. But you imme- 
diately illustrated the values for me. When you 
wrote of "the deep bass" of that green I could see, 
feel, smell, taste, and chew the leaf; it was rather 
bitter in taste, and dense, and faintly odorous with 
an odour. But I must not attempt to write about 
odours. I have been thinking of soprano, alto, con- 
tralto, tenor, and baritone colours. There is one trou- 
ble; that either to apply or to appreciate a more 
elaborate musical terminology to colour, both writer 
and reader should have musical knowledge. I think 
Symonds's failure is largely, though not entirely, 
due to his attempt to use "Symphonies" or I might 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 113 

say "symphonic musical terms." One not even pos- 
sessing a musical ear can feel such a piece as Gau- 
tier's "Symphonic en Blanc Majeur," but in Sy- 
monds's " Symphonies of Gray and Blue," etc., no 
one can discover any united effect. You can't see the 
thing as a whole; and just as soon as you have de- 
fined one of the images, all the rest blurs immedi- 
ately, like a photograph fading out. 

Long ago I said that words are like lizards in their 
power of changing colour with position. But they 
change much more than colour, — tonic value and 
force and psychology as well. Take, for instance, 
this one line from Andrew Lang's glorious prose 
translation of Homer, describing the wrath of Apollo 
when he drew the loud-clanging bow, — ''And the 
PYRES of the dead burnt continually in multitude.'^ 
Here with the solitary exceptions of the curious word 
"pyre," every word in the sentence is in itself ab- 
solutely commonplace. (Of course "dead" is eye- 
less and cold; but only in one of its meanings.) But 
as Lang distributes them. Homer himself could not 
have been more strong, musical, mighty. One can 
see the vast bickering, and the fire-tongues lapping 
the night. 

And yet, — and yet, — and yet (oh, what a here- 
tic I am !) I can't agree with you that the question 
of the use of foreign words is a simple one. I don't 
think it can be decided for or against by the reader's 
knowledge of the language used. I am, indeed, con- 
vinced that the question does not end there. It 
goes a little further, overlaps the boundary, — flows 
over into indefinable lands of yet unknown extent. 



114 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

In short, I think you forget Lewis Carroll. Now 
so long as we can enjoy "The Hunting of the Snark," 
or the tale of "The Jabberwock with Eye of Flame," 
— burbling as he comes, — we cannot, I feel sure, 
stop at the line you would lay down. To be sure 
these books of Carroll's have been offered to the 
world as nonsense books, — just like the nonsense 
rhymes about the "teary, scary bear," and "wicey, 
nicey apple pies." But they are not nonsense 
books. They contain a profound psychological 
teaching. Better nonsense has been, is being writ- 
ten every year by the ton. It is not nonsense that 
has made the supreme excellence and success of 
these books, with their infinitely subtle charm; it 
is superlative truth. The effect of words (among 
other things) upon the mind, — quite irrespective 
of meaning, — is shown. As for other matters, — 
did you ever jump out of bed, and try to write 
down at once, a wonderful poem or sentence com- 
posed during sleep .f^ I have, not once, but many 
times. The result is very strange. There are words 
there which never existed in any language. The 
poem is really very fine; — but it won't do to pub- 
lish just now (except in a nonsense book), because 
no publisher would consider it anything but the pro- 
duction of a raging lunatic. 

The extracts from Erse or Gaelic, and other 
strange tongues which you cite against this view, 
did at first hit me hard. But on reflection, I recov- 
ered my first position again. The weak point of 
that argument to me is this, — that the texts are 
not fair representations of possibilities. The un- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN lU 

known words are sinister, ugly, or absolutely col- 
ourless. (Indeed I can't even guess what language 
one extract was made from; it looked like Peruvian?) 
In other words, you have selected only the harsh, 
grim, unsightly words which appeal to nothing al- 
ready existing in the aesthetic or musical sense. But 
suppose you had selected many vowelled liquid 
Polynesian words, — or certain windy words from 
the Finnish, — would the effect be equally dead? 
I don't think it would. I know absolutely no- 
thing of philology. I am a supreme ignoramus on 
that science. But let me try to appeal to you with 
an example. In Loti's "Roman d'un Spahi," in that 
wonderful, magical chapter describing the mighty 
burst of the African spring, and all nature in riot of 
desire, and the savage dances under the great moon, 
— there occur these words, perpetually recurring 
like a refrain: — ''Anabilis Fohil; — faramata hi.'* 
What do they mean.f* I don't know; — perhaps you 
do, because you know philology and many tongues. 
But it is safe to say the general reader does not 
know. Loti says he cannot tell; the words "would 
burn the paper." Yet read that marvellous chapter; 
and then I will defy you to say those words have no 
effect upon you. They will have a strong one, — ■ 
partly musical, partly savage. 

Besides, in our own songs, there are many re- 
frains having no sense, — not even the sense of 
onomatopoeia. But they are always sung, for the 
sound, the rhyme. Surely a word may appeal to 
the imagination, must do so, if it appeals to the ear. 
Now the trouble with the examples you cited is also 



1 116 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

a musical trouble. They don't (except in the case 
of the Gaelic) appeal to my ear at all; if they did, 
they would have some effect. The effect of the Gaelic 
is rough and thick only, — because I don't know 
the meaning. But I know the accent, and I can 
hear the voices, as I heard them in my childhood. 

I would suggest this amendment to your resolu- 
tion: — That no words of an unknown foreign lan- 
guage should be introduced into artistic work, except 
such as may, because of their sound, etc., have a striking 
ejfect on the imagination. This would, however, ex- 
clude most Japanese words and words of many other 
languages, would n't it.f^ because the sound cannot 
even be imagined by the reader in most cases. 

You recommend me to write an article on words 
some day. I would like to, — from my own limited 
point of knowledge only; ignorance of philology 
would here be a great drawback. But it would be 
infinitely painful, laborious work. Because really 
the art of placing words is with most of us instinc- 
tive. It would be analyzing one's own sensations 
and tendencies of imagination; it would be nearly 
as hard as to write another "Alice in Wonderland." 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

June 15, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Do you remember Kings- 
ley's impressive description in *'Hereward" — of 
the coming of the Vikings : — 

"And nearer and nearer came the oar-roll. 
like thunder working up from the northeast," etc..'^ 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 117 

In that description he gives the chorus of their 
chant, expressing "the revelry of slaughter:" *' Yuch- 
hey-saa-saa-saa." Introduced as he introduces it, 
it produces a great effect, — though nobody seems 
to know what it means. (I asked a delightful friend 
of mine, — a sort of gypsified painter who spoke 
half the dialects of Europe; and he assured me that 
in a part of North Germany, that old Viking chorus 
is still sung, as a refrain, I believe he said, of drink- 
ing-songs. But he did not know what it meant.) 
Perhaps it means nothing. But it sounds like sword- 
work. 

One more: — 

It was at Mionoseki that I went out in an ancient 
boat, moved with oars of extraordinary shape, to 
visit a man-of-war. As the men rowed, — all stand- 
ing, — they sung, weirdly, — the boat song of that 
old coast. (I afterwards heard it in Oki.) 

Ara-ho, no san osa-a, 
Ira-ho, en-ya-a-a. 
Ghi! Ghil 

At each Ghi, the stroke is given. The song is very 
weird, — beginning with a high wail, and sinking 
down almost to a whisper, — after which the ghi 
is hissed through the teeth. That day we rowed out 
of the Past into the latest mechanical Present and 
back again, — through a thousand years each time. 
Always the same weird song. I asked everywhere 
for a meaning to it. There is none. Now why can- 
not I put it into the book, — with its "Ghi! ghi!"? 

Happy, happy, thrice happy the traveller who is 
able to write music by ear. Oh, if I could only give 



118 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

you musical copies of the extraordinary peasant 
songs I have heard, — strange, melancholy, pene- 
trating things, that seemed to be of the earth, of 
the land, — the cry of the ancient soil itself, or of 
its ancient soul! 

Yes; I read the Mayet case. A reaction against 
the missionaries I should be glad of; — but I fear it 
would be carried to other and less rational extremes. 
By the way, I am told the bateren here was a Rus- 
sian. I think that had something to do with the 
violence of hate. Japan is instinctively afraid of 
Russia. She ought to see that her natural friend 
and ally is China. From China — in China — she 
has much to gain, nothing to fear; from Russia no- 
thing to gain and much to fear, under certain pos- 
sible conditions. The cost of the reaction against 
us is cheap, however, if it has revived Japanese art. 
And I have an idea about some of the modern Jap- 
anese art I have seen. I am not of those who can 
persuade themselves anything is more intrinsically 
valuable because it is old. I think that I have seen 
Japanese drawing just as fine as that of Hokusai, 
Kunisada, etc., made only a couple of years ago, 
and merely by way of cheap popular illustration. 
Nay, I even think much of the drawing now being 
done is better than the average of the old drawing. 
Of course we miss two things, — the ancient fancy 
and the ancient colour. But these may be revived 
and transformed. I have some very old pictures, 
and some quite new ones; and I like the new ones in 
some respects even better. Japanese art means to 
Japan much more than she yet understands; it means 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 119 

wealth, prosperity, beauty, everything. I don't 
think we can judge what she is doing so much by 
the work of her great men, as by the work of her 
common, cheap draughtsmen and decorators. And 
it is good, — very good. 

... I shall not die happy unless I can spend some 
time again in a French, and much time in a Spanish 
colony. I think Manila is possible for me. I could 
take a six months' rest there from work. I suppose 
it cannot be so expensive as Havana. After all, it 
is only among the Latins that the charm of life still 
lingers in our Western civilization. Our industrial 
covetousness and restlessness, building cities up to 
heaven, blackening the face of the world with fac- 
tory ashes, and the face of the sky with pea-soup 
fogs, is killing everything of sweetness and light. 
If Daikoku-San would only make me rich enough, 
I will promise never to go further than Java or some 
such place, — and will build him a torii of bronze. 
By the way, did I not tell you the story of the man 
who cheated the Gods.^^ For he promised them a torii 
of good metal, and gave them a torii constructed of 

three needles. ^ 

■ Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. Two important subjects I had forgotten : — 
Speaking of reaction, I have found it a good deal 
reflected even in the compositions of my students '^ 
(this, of course entre nous). I have always had their 
confidence, even when I could get nothing else; 
and they write their thoughts. They frankly ex- 
press their dislike of foreigners; — they wish to see 



120 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

them swept from the country, driven from the coun- 
try. In Izumo (where I got some of the ancient 
charm-songs for driving foreigners away), the feel- 
ing was not so strong, perhaps. To-day it seems 
very strong. Many compositions express a desire 
for war. Many others lament the slavery of the 
country to foreigners. Many recall the case of 
Hawaii, which the Japanese were quick to notice; 
others cite the case of India, — "subject to brutal 
foreigners." All this is boys' work. Yes, but boys 
like these, mostly in the neighbourhood of twenty — 
form their opinions from general opinions. Indi- 
vidual, spontaneous opinions are rare among them. 
I can never even get them to express an original 
opinion, to suggest a subject for conversation. I 
have to help them to think. Assuredly their thoughts 
are made for them; — and mean something. Japan 
is going to retaliate for all the supercilious consider- 
ation she has received. I think we are secretly de- 
spised or hated, or both. Certainly despised as 
hirelings, and hated as superiors. This by the new 
Japan, of course. The politeness which is "benevo- 
lence in small things" is yet among the people. I 
have seen none of it among the educated here. As 
for myself, I am trusted and tolerated, — nothing 
more. If I speak, I am saluted. If I ask a question, 
I am politely snubbed or evaded. I have been made 
to understand, without being actually told as much, 
not to ask any questions. Of course with the stu- 
dents I am like an elder brother; there is no trouble 
there. And I do not try to check their feeling about 
foreigners. I rather encourage it. I encourage it 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 121 

because it is patriotic, because it is just, because 
it indicates national recuperation. What I always 
discourage are such remarks as "Japan is only a 
little country," etc., " ignorant people worship idols." 
All such notions I combat, and strongly criticise. 
I teach them respect for their own faiths, for the 
beliefs of the common people, and for their own 
country. I am practically a traitor to England 
(eh.^) and a renegade. But in the eternal order of 
things, I know I am. right. 

The other subject is about Buddhism. It seems 
to me the Japanese are awaking to the knowledge 
of a fact which ought to have long ago been as plain 
to them as the nose on the face of a Tengu, — namely 
that the contemptuous attitude of the government 
toward Buddhism has produced infinite moral 
harm ; and that with education and a corrupt priest- 
hood, Japan must soon have no religion at all. If 
I am not mistaken, there are signs that an effort will 
be made to aid Buddhism educationally. The re- 
generation of Buddhism would be, I think, the sav- 
ing of much that is Japanese. Do you know Torio.'^ 
How I wish you and he could talk about what is 
and what ought to be. 

Well, I ought to apologize for writing so much. 
But I think you may be interested in all things. 

June 19, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... About the books. 
Yes, I will make out a list later on, and send at the 
same time what will cover the cost. In this per- 
haps I will not include Carlyle at all; for since I 



122 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

wrote last I have been thinking that I need other 
books much more, — possibly fewer, too, in number. 
But I won't send any list till you are feeling quite 
well, and settled again in Tokyo for a few months. 
In the meantime I will be grateful for a loan of 
Oliver Cromwell. 

Assuredly Carlyle is no sweet pill to swallow; 
and he never guides you anywhere. He is hard read- 
ing; one feels as if travelling over broken rocks and 
boulders hidden by scrub. But there are lightning 
flashes in that apocalyptic style of his which reveal 
infinite things. I read only for the flashes. Even 
then, only a little at a time, every day. Did you 
ever know the agony of trying to read Sartor Resartus 
for pleasure? 

. . . And here is something else entre nous. I am 
going, in spite of considerable self-mistrust, to at- 
tempt a philosophical article on L'eternel feminin — 
in the West, as elucidated by the East. Ex Oriente 
Lux! This idea has encouraged me to the attempt; 
and I am therefore very careful of the idea, — like 
one having made a discovery. While cogitating it 
occurred to me that certain peculiarities of the art 
of both hemispheres can only be explained by the 
absence or presence of the dominant sexual idea. 
Not only must the Japanese remain quite blind to 
all in our literature, art, etc., created by that idea; 
but we ourselves must suffer aesthetically by the 
necessarily one-sided character of our own art, — 
or aesthetic development. I shall have to work it 
out before August, if possible. 

I am also writing out a few extraordinary child 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 123 

stories, which I think I might get Japanese illus- 
trations for some day. 

Is the tale of the old woman who drank so much 
of the Fountain of Youth that she drank herself 
back into babyhood, unwritten? Or is it Japanese ? 
It has a savour to me of Western fancy; but I am 
not sure. 

A funny story for you. At Kumamoto, they are 
vulgar folk — all the women play the samisen. In- 
stead of calling in geisha, the poorer folk make their 
own music. Near us a family yesterday proceeded, 
after necessary delays, to celebrate the birth of a 
child. The wife played the samisen, the mother-in- 
law the drum, and the father danced to please the 
guests. 

As all this was quite extraordinary to Izumo peo- 
ple, my folks went to look at it. It was night, and 
the gates were closed. A new servant alone was left 
to guard the front part of the house, while I guarded 
the rear. But the man thought he might also go to 
see just for a moment. He went to what he believed 
to be the gate of the street, opened it, and found 
himself in absolute darkness. There was neither 
moon nor stars. He returned, said a prayer to the 
Gods, and tried the gate again. Black as a coal! 
Then he came back and waited. 

When the family returned he naively asked, " Was 
there any light in the street when you went.^" 
"Plenty of light!" all said; "lamps and a big moon.'* 
"So!" exclaimed the servant triumphantly, "I 
knew it was a fox .^" 

Now the truth of the matter was that he had 



124 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

opened the gate of the wood house, mistakinsj it for 
the smaller street gate, which it very much resem- 
bles, — and finding himself in the dark he was con- 
vinced that a fox was trying to deceive him. We 
all laughed; but he said: "It would not have been 
the first time that a fox put his hand before my 
eyes." 

My old kurumaya has fox stories enough, but 
none of his own experience. He brought to the house, 
however, a young kurumaya who told us that one 
evening a military officer engaged him to take him 
to a house near the Hanaokayama. He took him 
there. The officer went into the house, — a superb 
residence, — bidding him wait. He waited until 
3 A. M. Then he suddenly saw there was no house, 
and that his kuruma was gone. He got no money, 
and only found his kuruma two days later, — in 

^ ^°'S^- Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

June 25, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — . . . You have smashed 
me, I confess, on the question of quoting foreign 
words of unknown meaning. Certainly I have no 
further argument to offer. I only venture to faintly 
suggest that sometimes, — sometimes, — in ex- 
traordinary cases, I still think there might be an 
artistic use of such words. Kipling ventures it in 
his ballads (I don't mean the Ditties, — they are, 
of course, only for the Anglo-Indian). 

With 'er arm upon my shoulder, an' er cheek agin my cheek. 
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak, — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAJVIBERLAIN 125 

Elephints a-pilin' teak 

In the sludgy, squdgy creek. 
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak! 

On the road to Mandalay. 

But I won't say any more now. I fear I could not 
make many changes in the text of the book; but I 
will be more careful in future, and if I write any 
more Japanese stories I shall keep Japanese words 
out of them as much as I can. 

For me, all is dead blank again. I'm paralyzed 
for lack of certainties. After writing one hundred 
pages of MS. (about) on the Eternal Feminine, I 
suddenly find myself checked by doubts of a very 
serious kind. I read your "Classical Poetry" over 
again to-day; and I find so many sweet thoughts in 
those poems that I fear my argument about the 
absence of the love-element from Japanese romance 
(except as the love of dancing girls, etc.) must be all 
wrong. But if I am all wrong, why do the Japanese 
hate our English society novel as indecent.^ Why 
are they utterly disgusted with our raving about 
kisses and embraces .f* You see my argument was 
going to be a glorious one. I had reasoned out that 
we can only see Nature as Masculine and Feminine 
(chiefly feminine) while the Japanese see Nature as 
Neuter, which we can't do at all. And the influ- 
ence of all this on art and thought. But I can't work 
out my ideas half so soon as I hoped. I must take up 
something else in the meantime. . . . 

I am sorry you did not like Sacher-Masoch ; for I 
love him. But I must respect the combined criti- 
cism of yourself and Mason, as having weight. It is 
possible I may have placed too much value on the 



126 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

books. But if you like Tolstoi (especially "The Cos- 
sacks"); Tourgueneff's short stories; Dostoievsky; 
Gogol, — I don't see why you don't like my Austro- 
Hungarian Jew. Mason does n't like these stories 
either. But why.f* I don't like Howell's books be- 
cause I detest the kind of people he writes about. 
Perhaps you and Mason don't like S. Masoch's 
people. But I can't understand how you don't like 
"The Mother of God." Perhaps you will hke Loti's 
book better. You remember what I wrote you long 
ago about my belief that his genius must expire with 
that natural blunting of the nerves which comes 
with the passing of youth. He says so himself touch- 
ingly in his little preface — '^deja autour de moiy 
toinhe une sorte de nuit.'^ 

Faithfully ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

June 27, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... I trust your 
thoughts about yourself, as a worker, are only tem- 
porary, — the result of a lassitude quite natural 
after travelling eighty or ninety thousand miles. I 
do not believe you will continue to feel so. But I do 
believe that it will be best for you to take all the 
rest, and pleasure, and indulgence you can for at 
least six months. Such, indeed, is the natural law 
after long travelling. And the work gains by it after. 
In the West Indian heat, memory and everything 
failed me sometimes; and I said to my friend: — "I 
can't write; I almost wish I was dead." For I felt 
very blue. He (a physician and author) said: — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 127 

"Don't try to. Go to the country and read novels 
and bathe. We all feel that way here; it is only 
Nature's warning in the tropics to take rest, — to 
have some fun." I found he was right, and I never 
strained again. Of course it follows to reason that 
when the physical vitality runs low, the mental 
power for consecutive effort must become feeble; the 
reserve of both forces is the same. The nerve bat- 
teries must be left to fill themselves slowly; and the 
filling often takes a long time. Once, in my case, it 
took years to recharge. But I don't think age has 
anything to do with it. I am certainly much 
stronger now than I was at thirty. The only differ- 
ence is that it takes us longer to recuperate at every 
successive decade. By the way, to-day I am forty- 
three. How many more years for literary work.f^ I 
hope at least twenty; — I want only the material. 
And you will certainly feel the same way, if you take 
this small gadabout's advice to forget all work for 
six months, or at least three. Besides I would in- 
dulge myself if I were you. A good digestion means 
that everything is possible. "Avec ga, on se refait 
toujours," said a French adviser once. If I were you 
I would give that digestion plenty of work with 
claret and beef and puddings and pies and liqueurs. 
And I would smoke cigars; and I would drink 
brandy. And I would not allow myself even to 
think of work till the surplus of returning strength 
— and nothing else — made work absolutely neces- 
sary to happiness. Of course, all this is mere repeti- 
tion of my own experience, — and perhaps to you, 
mere verbiage. But I can't help suspecting that you 



128 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

do not allow yourself all the mere bodily gratifica- 
tion that you might allow yourself with good results. 
I think so because you told me that, although when 
I dined with you, you lived superbly, that when 
alone it is your habit to eat very little. So with all 
scholars, perhaps. But I wish you would cultivate 
the physical only, for a time. Perhaps no doctor 
ever told you this; but it is a curious fact in my own 
experience, — a man can scientifically triple the 
assimilating capacity of his stomach. And that 
means tripling the storage of physical force within 
himself. I could tell you extraordinary things but I 
fear to bore you; and indeed I would not have said 
all this but for my anxiety at hearing that you feel 
vitally low. Wherefore I talked of Nature, the great- 
est nurse, who brought me back to strength twice 
after the doctors declared me doomed, and I was 
able to eat only one raw egg a day. 

I read part of your last letter with remorse. I am 
now all at one with you on the subject of Buddhism; 
and my first enthusiasm for Shinto, I fear, was 
wrong. I thought I saw in Shinto, the soul of Japan- 
ese Loyalty, — self-sacrifice, etc. I wrote enthusias- 
tically about it; — I fear you will justly condemn 
my views. Perhaps I shall be able to modify some 
of them in proof. Yes, Buddhism makes an appeal 
to the human heart, and Shinto only to tradition 
and race feeling. 

There is, however, a power, — a mighty power, in 
that, too. I can't remember now where I read a 
wonderful story about a Polish brigade under fire 
during the Franco-Prussian War. The French bat- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 129 

teries are directed upon it; the fire of the mitrail- 
leuses is atrocious. The Polish brigade stands still 
under the infernal hail, cursed by its German officers 
for the least murmur, — " Silence ! you Polish hogs ! " 
— while the ground is being strewn with blood and 
brains and entrails. Hundreds fall; thousands! and 
the order is always, "Close up, you Polish hogs!" 
Just one instant with the bayonet, — one chance to 
retaliate, to die like men! But the iron order is 
to wait. Men sob with rage. *' Silence, you Polish 
beasts!" And then, at last, old Steinmetz, smoking 
his pipe in the carnage, gives a signal, — the signal. 
The bugles ring out with the force of Roland's last 
blast at Roncesvalles, the air forbidden ever to be 
sung or heard at other times — the national air 
(you know it) — ^""Nol Poland is not dead!" And 
withfthat crash of brass all that lives of the brigade 
is hurled at the French batteries. Mechanical 
power, if absolutely irresistible, might fling back 
such a charge, but no human power. For old Stein- 
metz, smoking his pipe, had made Schopenhauer- 
esquely, the mightiest appeal to those "Polish 
brutes" that man, God, or devil could make, the 
appeal to the ghost of the Race. The dead heard 
it; and they came back that day, — the dead of 
a thousand years. 

And then you know the tremendous story of the 
Cuirassiers at Reichshoffen, — dying to a man to 
cover the retreat; each regiment charging in turn 
over the torn bodies of those who had formed the 
first regiment. That was a grand failure and a grand 
sacrifice. But what is not a failure is the annual 



130 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

ceremony, when, in the great camp, the roll-call of 
the dead is called, and every buried Cuirassier an- 
swers "Present!" — through the mouth of the liv- 
ing, because the grand dead never die. 

Now old Steinmetz smoking his pipe, waiting for 
the right moment; the French people, keeping alive 
the memory of the heroism of Reichshoffen, — both 
have the same thought, — the thought that moved 
Carlyle to say that not pleasure and happiness, but 
pain and misery and death are the greatest attrac- 
tions to men's souls, — that which they seek in pre- 
ference to all else. (Carlyle puts it crookedly; but 
there is a thought there.) The race feeling is the 
most powerful of all impulses; stir it deeply, — and 
to the living the value of life and fame and love 
and all else disappear like smoke; and the dead be- 
come the masters; and the living only the instru- 
ments. Now, do you not think something of the 
magic by which that feeling can be stirred, is pos- 
sessed by Shinto .f^ If it is, then Shinto is mighty. 
If not, then Shinto is like a sacred awabi-shell, 
empty and full of holes. 

But my letter is too long. To-morrow I will write 
you about the o-fuda book, and other things. 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

July 7, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I suppose my letter 
about eating must have seemed very simple to you; 
but it was prompted by ideas which your answer 
confirms. I had a very charming friend, Charles 
Gayarre, the Louisiana historian, — a scholar of the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 131 

old Regime, who wrote French in the style of Cha- 
teaubriand; he used to eat so carefully that every- 
thing was weighed for him. But his trouble was in 
regard to digestion. When you told me you had no 
trouble of that sort, I at once suggested the oppo- 
site policy, — because it succeeded twice in my own 
case, and for another reason. It seems to me that we 
conquer anything which takes a chronic form only 
by a surplus of physical force in ourselves; and how 
a man can get such a surplus while he eats like a 
butterfly, I can't imagine. I mean I can't under- 
stand the scientific principle behind the treatment 
you follow. So, being anxious, perhaps I said some 
"simple" things. 

The examinations are upon me; — the heat alone 
is pleasing, — it has become almost West Indian; — 
the outlook is very dull and discomforting. I want 
to be working, and I have no material; for I never 
got anything in Kumamoto, and I have done all I 
could with my Izumo notes. I read; but reading is 
tiresome, — seems to me almost wicked ; — I think 
of Kipling's fines, — 

One minute's work to thee denied 
Stands all Eternity's oflFence. 

Yet I shall certainly never get any material here; 
though my interests are here. Interest and literary 
duty have become antagonistic. What shall I do? 
is my perpetual plaint. A thought that eats into my 
brain like an acid. Have I come to a standstill.'' I 
would gladly pay a salary to somebody to teach me 
Buddhism, — the living Buddhism. Then I could 



132 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN , 

write something. But to have no impressions, no 
pleasures, is certainly hell, — the Kwakto Jigoku 
variety. There is no religion here, — no poetry, — 
no courtesy, — no myths, — no traditions, — no 
superstitions. Beastly modernization! 

The idea of which we spoke together is also grow- 
ing upon me, — that thorough social disorganiza- 
tion is going to beget revolution. The spirit of in- 
subordination, hostility to foreigners, disrespect to 
traditions, contempt for religion, and national van- 
ity, — grows with prodigious rapidity just in pro- 
portion as the modernization becomes more thor- 
ough. The educated Japanese complains at being 
obliged to conceal his scepticism about the divinity 
of the Emperor. But when the peasant becomes 
equally sceptical he won't pay his taxes. I can't see 
anything for Japan now but revolution or a military 
domination; the latter would, I think, be the best. 
No; the country is certainly going to lose all its 
charm, — all its Japanesiness; it is going to become 
all industrially vulgar and industrially common- 
place. And I feel tired of it. In short, the pendulum 
has swung the wrong way recently. 

But this is n't the sort of thing to amuse you. 
What I want to give you is a specimen of an exam- 
ination composition on the Story of the Three 
Caskets ("Merchant of Venice"), which I gave for 
a subject to my third year class. 

** Once upon a time there was in Italy a man who 
was a very rich and most venerable. 

"He has a daughter, very beauty — the bride of 
the all village. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 133 

"She has this fate when her father has die, — 
then all his furniture was to fall on her. 

*'So every men wanted to marriage to her. 

*'The father become old and sicked into his bed, 
— and could n't get up once more, — and he fore- 
seed that sick is the last sick on his life. 

*'So he called his remarkable girle to his bed, and 
said, — 'I cannot get off of death, and I want a suc- 
cessor to my house — ' 

(I skip the instruction about the three caskets, 
and the description of the princes of Morocco and 
of Arragon.) 

*'This Prince chosened the casket of gold, and find 
inside the skeleton of the old man, — which won- 
dered him unfortunately. 

"The other Prince choosened the casket of silver, 
and find a Fool-Man inside, and in sollow runned 
away." . . . 

Having much more of this sort of thing to correct, 
I must close. No news from America yet. I want to 
get to Nagasaki next week if I can. Perhaps I shall 
be able to get some impressions there, and to write 
you some letters, pleasant letters. 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

July 14, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your analysis of Loti is 
quite delightful; and what was more so was the 
announcement that parts of the book had pleased 
you, — as I thought they would. Loti's style is, of 
course, eccentric; but I am not sufficiently versed in 
the rules to answer the question about his curious 



134 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

phrases. He is not, of course, classic; and in his best 
work, which you have not yet seen, he violates all 
classic traditions. I must try to find you "Le Roman 
d'un Spahi;" "Fleurs d'Ennui;" and "Le Mariage 
de Loti;" these were written before his nerves be- 
came dull. There is also in the "Propos d'Exil'* 
some sketches of East Africa that are not less artistic 
than the pictures of West Africa in the Spahi-book. 
As for his moral side, you will find him much worse 
than in "Madame Chrysantheme." Yet there is 
wonderful beauty in his account of a night spent 
with an Arabian fille, — " TJne sauterelle du desert.'* 
The melancholy element is also much stronger in 
these earlier books; but it there seems natural, — 
as the splendour and pitilessness of tropic Nature, 
ignoring man, naturally causes melancholy. Vast- 
ness of plain and cloudless sky; mountains and 
Amazonian floods, of course, make us feel our own 
impermanency, and the awful youth of the world. 

I am glad you have not read much of Gautier's 
verse; because there will be a glorious revelation for 
you. His choicest work is all in the "Emaux et 
Camees," — a little book you can read in one morn- 
ing, but having read, will re-read a thousand times. 
The " Symphonic " is in it, — and perhaps fifty other 
brief pieces, nearly all in quatrains. I think it the 
most perfect verse that was ever made in this world; 
it is just what its title implies, — jewelry of words, 
the art of a mighty lapidary. There you will see the 
syllables "that shine like phosphorus when rubbed." 
There are many beautiful things in Gautier's other 
volumes of poetry, but scarcely anything to compare 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 135 

with the "fimaux et Camees." Certainly Victor 
Hugo never even approached Gautier in this special 
kind of verse. And if you have not read Gautier's 
"Contes et Nouvelles" (two vols.) you will have 
another surprise. I translated and published some; 
Andrew Lang did the same thing after me, but in- 
finitely better (I believe he abused my translation in 
his preface). My favourites are *' Arria Marcella ; " 
"La Morte Amoureuse;" "Le Pied de Momie;" 
"Une Nuit de Cleopatre." But you will find won- 
derful things besides. Of course you have read 
" Mademoiselle de Maupin," — that miracle of sen- 
suous art. I was very fond of all the Romantic 
School; next to Gautier as a prose-writer, I was be- 
witched most, I think, by De Nerval's "Voyage en 
Orient," with its tremendous legend of Solomon and 
the Queen of Sheba; and, though shocked, I felt 
a surprise of pleasure in the wonderful insanities of 
Baudelaire. Of Flaubert I only liked what most 
people dislike, — "La Tentation de Saint Antoine," 
— besides the wonderful " Trois Contes." "Madame 
Bovary" is pure realism; and I hate pure realism. I 
still believe in the Romantic School. Loti partly 
belongs to it. The realistic school seems to me 
played out, since Maupassant went mad; and the 
abominations (how clever they are, nevertheless!) 
of Richepin ("Les Blasphemes," "La Mer") will 
not kill that quality of romantic verse of which they 
were an unintentional caricature. Among the se- 
verer writers of the romantic school (Gautier called 
them presbyopes) I love Merimee in all his work, — 
historical, etc., as well as romantic. He alone has 



136 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

something of an English quality, beautifully shown, 
I think, in his studies of Russian history; "Les Faux 
Demetrius," and *'Les Cosaques d'Autrefois." 
Somehow or other, Daudet and Zola and Bourget 
do not seem to me to have the enduring qualities of 
those older writers. They seem rather varieties 
of the Goncourt breed ; therefore all visibly artificial. 
They cannot write from an overflowing imagination 
and a big heart, — like Hugo, Gautier, Merimee, 
De Nerval; they write from notebooks, and dabble 
in philosophy and medicine. If I can find at Naga- 
saki anything good that I think you would like, 
I will get it. 

For I 'm off, in a day or two. My next letter will 
be from Nagasaki. I don't think you could bear the 
heat in Kumamoto now; I like it, except at night, 
when there are no windows to open, and the mos- 
quitoes are very atrocious. 

Mason has written me a delightful letter, but says 
I must n't write to him again for a time, as he is 
going away to Yezo. 

By the way, he never sent me the Oliver Crom- 
well, — or at least, I never got it. It makes no dif- 
ference, as I shall be away; but I mention the fact 
merely for fear the book might have been sent and 
not dehvered, — like Lowell's letter. 

Ever most truly, Lafcadio Hearn. 

July 16, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — . . . Oh ! I love Heine. 
Yes, I saw the marvellous translations in Black- 
wood^ — among others "The Pilgrimage to Keo- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 137 

laar" which will haunt me as long as I live. I have 
read Bowring's translations of course; they are 
rough. I read the translations by Emma Lazarus 
(a pretty little Jewess who died in 1885, I think); 
some were delicious, — especially the ghostly pieces 
*'Don Ramiro," etc., and that awful satire in which 
the young lady who had been abusing the Jews in a 
frantic way, allows herself to be seduced by a noble 
knight, who thereupon informs her that he is the 
son of the most famous and most learned Israel of 
Saragossa. I also read the French prose-versions of 
Heine, — superintended by himself. Indeed I liked 
the prose-versions better than anything except the 
translations in Blackwood. I never understood the 
beauty of " Faust" till I had read Hayward's prose- 
translation. The verse of Taylor and others seemed 
to mask the meaning for me. 

I am trying again to work at my theory of the 
Eternal Feminine in its influence on Western aes- 
thetic thought, but I have no heart in the work for 
the present. I shall wait for a happy reaction to 
develop the ideas more. What can one do in a city, 
without temples, art, or courtesy? Still Kumamoto 
is better for me than Tokyo could be, or Kanazawa; 
the people know me, and I have much leisure and 
rest, and the climate is warm. Perhaps I can find 
a student sometime who has studied Buddhism, and 
employ him for a year or two. But nothing is so dif- 
ficult as for a foreigner to find an honest Japanese 
helper. Even my little boy turned out badly, and 
I had to send him away, after he had given us all 
a world of trouble. 



138 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

What a moral disintegration seems to have come 
upon the country. Here are fishermen at war, 
farmers at war, poHticians killing each other, stu- 
dents fighting, a general increase of crime, etc. 
Japan won't be the best place in the world after 

another generation. ^ ^ ^ i 

iliVer most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

July 16, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I have to write a line more 
to ask you — at your own convenience — to tell me 
whether the Japanese word mayoi, in the sense of the 
fascination of woman, can have any Buddhist affin- 
ity with the Sanscrit may a "illusion." I hope it has; 
but nothing is so insane in these days as to hazard 
an etymology without being "everlastingly sure." 

I send a photo of Pierre Loti, — taken, I think, about 
eight or nine years ago. It is not the sort of face to 
encourage affection; but it is very, very Latin, — 
keen, fine, and hard. I don't see much heart there, 
but there is intense life, and great sureness of self. 

The well has been cleaned. And there have been 
rites paid to the God of Wells. Do you know that in 
all the wells little fishes are kept, — to purify the 
water .f^ — funa? Those in my well are rather large. 
I suppose the custom is founded upon centuries of 
experience. In learning about the fish, — regarded 
as the servants of the Well God, — I also learned the 
meaning of the old phrase funazamurai, — so often 
repeated in the Chinshingura. 

Ever with best regards, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



^ TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 139 

jf July 22, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I predicted a letter from 
Nagasaki; but the prediction I found too difficult to 
fulfil. In fact I fled away from Nagasaki, — and 
propose to relate to you the history of my adven- 
tures, or some of them. 

I left Kumamoto on the morning of the 20th, 
alone, en route for Nagasaki via Hyakkwan. From 
Kumamoto to Hyakkwan is about one and one-half 
hours by jinrickisha. A dirty little country village 
in a sea of rice fields, is Hyakkwan. The people are 
simple and good. I found one of my students there 
studying Chinese. Then I took a boat for the 
steamer. The boat was a broken-nosed boat. 

The boat left the creek and wriggled over a sea, 
still as the silent sea of Coleridge's poem, unto the 
distance of four ri. It was tiresome. Then it stopped 
and waited; and for more than an hour, I watched 
the water surface sinuously moving with a queer 
motion as of reticulated stuffs being pulled in oppo- 
site directions, network of ripples above network of 
ripples. There was nothing else to watch. At last I 
saw an inverted comma on the edge of the sky. It 
came nearer. Finally I heard a scream of steam that 
filled my soul with joy. But it turned out to be the 
wrong steamer. I waited one more hour in that 
boat, and the right steamer appeared. 
'. Except the Oki steamer I never became familiar 
with such an instrument of torture. Her name was 
the Taiko Maru. She was built only for kimono or 
yukata, and for the squatting position. The heat 
was that of the drying room of a steam-laundry. 



140 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

There was nothing to drink but tea. I slept on the 
tatami, comfortably, with my head on a pillow of 
leather paper stamped with the curious figure of an 
elephant-headed Karashishi . Had I donned Japanese 
clothes instead of a duck suit, I would have been com- 
fortable. But as I was going to a European hotel, 
I dressed according to the code, — for which I was 
very sorry later on. 

We reached Nagasaki at 3 A. m., the blackest hour. 
A coolie promised to take me to the hotel, but took 
me a mile away from it and then said he did not 
know where it was. I took my baggage from him, and 
found a belated kurumaya to take me to the hotel. 
It was locked up. I put my shoulder against the gate, 
and it opened and I went up steps between heights 
of clipped shrubbery and ranks of flower pots filled 
with ornamental plants into a piazza, full of rock- 
ing-chairs and lamps and silence. There I waited 
for sunrise. Sunrise over the bay was really lovely; 
— I saw strips of gold, like those of the old ballads. 
And at last the house woke up and I got a room. 

But it was too hot to stay in the hotel. A dead 
heat, worse than any tropical heat I ever felt, and 
getting worse as the sun rose. I hired a kuruma and 
rushed about. I saw the beautiful city in the most 
beautiful light possible; I climbed the hills; I vis- 
ited the new metal torii. Let me assure you that 
it is very ugly, — that torii ; it is the ugliest I ever 
saw in Japan. It is monstrously shaped, — looks 
top-heavy, — has no grace, and is of a sooty stove- 
colour. Whoever made the design ought to be killed 
with the edge of the sword. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 141 

Then I got breakfast and went out again. The 
sum of my impressions was that Nagasaki is the 
prettiest seaport I ever saw, — full of picturesque- 
ness and quaintness, — made for artists to etch and 
for photographers to photograph. But I could not 
buy anything I wanted, or find anything I wished 
to find in a Western line. Very few foreigners, — 
and no books, — nothing to pick up, — no supplies 
to be had except in large quantities. 

As the day grew hotter, I began to grieve exceed- 
ingly that I had put on a duck suit, and had gone 
to the Bellevue Hotel. Comfort inside of Western 
clothes and Western architecture in such heat was 
out of the question. Not even in Venezuela, in the 
hottest hours of the afternoon, did I ever feel such 
heat. In the hotel I heard the guests say they could 
not sleep for the heat. There was nothing for it ex- 
cept iced drinks at twenty-five cents. I drank about 
four yen worth, and was angry with all the world, 
because I could not strip or be comfortable. By six 
o'clock I determined to flee away. The heat was 
hell, — and though I like heat, the combination of 
heat and stupid convention is something beyond 
my power of endurance. If I had to wear European 
clothes and live in a European house in such heat 
for one week, I should go crazy or die. I resolved to 
flee away from Nagasaki at once. 

In a Japanese hotel one can always be comfortable 
and naked. In a Japanese hotel everything you 
want to buy is found for you. In a Japanese hotel 
arrangements are made to take you anywhere you 
want to go. In a Japanese hotel they buy your 



142 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

tickets for you, and accompany you to the steamer 
or railroad. But in the beastly Western hotels, no- 
body will even answer a question. There is nobody 
to ask, except depraved Japanese servants who 
understand no language when asked to take any 
trouble. I got a kuruma and went to a Japanese 
steamship company, and begged them, in my bad 
Japanese, to get me outside of Nagasaki as quick as 
possible. To my surprise they understood and sym- 
pathized with me, and promised to send for me at 
3 A. M. I waited in the hotel till the heat became so 
atrocious that even the mosquitoes had not strength 
to bite, — then I tried to go out. But men wear- 
ing shirt-tails asked me if I "wanna nice gil," — so 
I went back again, and sat in the stifling veranda 
until 3 A. M. Then the Japanese Company sent a 
man and a sampan for me, and took me away. And 
I blessed them therefor. 

Got out of the harbor by half-past three, on the 
Kinrin Maru (an old acquaintance), with a ticket 
for Misumi. From Misumi I was told a small 
steamer would take me to Hyakkwan. Got to Mi- 
sumi at 9 A. M. But there was no small steamer that 
day. 

At Misumi there is a hotel, the TJrashimaya, built 
and furnished in Western style, — as much superior 
to the Nagasaki hotel as the sun is superior to a 
farthing candle. Also a very beautiful woman, — 
graceful as a dragon-fly, — with a voice like the 
tinkling of a crystal wind-bell, took care of me, hired 
kurumaya, gave me a splendid breakfast, and 
charged me for all the entertainment only forty sen. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 143 

She understood my Japanese, and talked to me, and 
I felt like a soul suddenly reborn in the heart of a 
luminous lotos-flower in the garden of Paradise. 
Also all the maidens of the hotel seemed to me 
tennin, — since I had just escaped from the most 
frightful place of sojourn that exists in this world. 
And summer mists bathed sea and hills and all 
distant things, — a world of divinely soft blue, the 
blue of iridescent mother-of-pearl. There were a 
few white clouds dreaming in the sky; and they 
threw long white trembling lights on the water. 
And I dreamed of Urashima. The small soul of me 
drifted out over that summer sea, — steeped all in 
the blue light, — and in the fairy boat there was 
a maiden standing, more beautiful than the blue 
light itself, and softer, and sweeter; and she said to 
me in a voice that seemed to come from a thousand 
summers back, — "Now we will go to my father's 
palace, the Dragon Palace under the waves of the 
South." But I said, "No; I must go home to Kuma- 
moto; — I have telegraphed, you see." "Then you 
will pay the kurumaya only seventy-five sen," she 
made answer, — " and you can come back again when 
you wish, because you will not open the box." And 
in this day-dream there came to me the interpreta- 
tion of the divine old story; and I learned the mys- 
tery of it and the meaning. I put the box into my 
heart of hearts, and went away. 

Hours I watched the blue world, and wondered at 
the loveliness of it, and thought of the old Gods 
and their ways, — though along the road ran a line 
of telegraph poles. And upon all the telegraph top 



144 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN' 

wires sat rows of little white-breasted birds. I saw 
they always sat with their heads toward the road. 
They watched us passing without fear. I counted 
hundreds. Not one sat with its tail to the road, — 
not even one. All seemed waiting for something. I 
kept on counting them till I fell asleep in the ku- 
ruma, — and floated away somewhere in a phantom- 
boat; and the daughter of the Dragon-King stood 
over me and smiled and said, — "You will pay the 
kurumaya only seventy-five sen." . . . 

Drums awoke me, — peasants in all the villages 
invoking the rain. No rain; only white clouds, — 
ghosts of clouds that died a thousand summers ago, 
— or perhaps that summer mist that escaped from 
Urashima's box. (Really he was foolish to open the 
box. I remember opening such a box long, long ago. 
Therefore my soul became old.) Always the birds in 
rows on the telegraph wires, and not even one with 
its tail turned to the road. There were picturesque 
scenes. Nagahama village was pretty. It possesses 
a great spring at the foot of a hill. There boys and 
girls were bathing together. I stopped to look at 
them. A young girl lifted a bucket of cold water to 
give the runner to drink, and her light dress opening 
with the effort showed the ripeness of a youth sweet 
as fruit before it has become too soft. Always beat- 
ing of drums at every village for rain. 

The kurumaya deserts me. Is succeeded by a 
fraud. I discharge the fraud in the middle of rice 
fields and tramp on alone, carrying my own baggage. 
Kumamoto is still three and one half ri distant. The 
little birds watch me from the telegraph wires. Ex- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 145 

traordinary semi — quite different from those of 
Izumo — cry piteously and utter plaintive squeals 
when seized by little boys. Of course it is like 
squealing with one's feet instead of with one's 
mouth. But being directed by will, and for the pur- 
pose of exciting compassion, the squeal is equally 
pathetic. 

Then I find a good kurumaya and proceed. I get 
home as the shadows lengthen. The sun has flayed 
my hands, and I have eaten nothing since nine 
o'clock, and I have not been in bed for three days, 
and I have not a dry thread on me. But I am home 
again, and therefore supremely happy. Nagasaki 
exists for me only as an evil dream of a hotel in hell, 
— with the seven deadly Sins for waiters. Certainly 
I shall never see it again. It is the hardest place to 
go to, or to escape from, in the whole world. When 
I was in it Kumamoto seemed to me displaced by 
magic to the distance of 100,000 miles, beyond long 
successions of typhoons and mountain ranges. I am 
again in a yukata, — upon tatami, — in real Japan. 
Of my trip I have nevertheless some pleasant recol- 
lections, — and a pretty fan, representing mountains 
and summer-sea, and bearing the name "Urashi- 
maya." At sight of it the vision and the dream re- 
turn. I will often see them again; for the box will 
never be opened. But I was obliged to disobey the 
daughter of the Dragon-God in one thing; I paid 
the kurumaya, — three kurumaya, — one yen and 
twenty-five sen. Had they only known they could 
have made me pay one hundred and twenty -five yen. 

"How much," my wife asks me, "would you 



146, LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

accept on condition of spending a week more in the 
Bellevue Hotel, Nagasaki?" 

"Surely," I answer, "no sum earthly. Only the 
promise of perpetual youth in the palace of the 
Dragon -God for a thousand years, or a transporta- 
tion to the Paradise of Amida Buddha." 
Ever with best regards, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

August 16, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I have been a little neg- 
lectful, because of my reverie about Urashima, 
called "The Dream of a Summer Day," which I am 
now sending to Boston. Many, many thanks for 
your kindness in having the text looked up for me. 
And do you know, the beauty of that word Elysium 
greatly grew as I contemplated Horai, and felt that 
it could never be made to convey any idea to an 
English reader, and that only the Greek word could 
render the idea of ghostly happiness properly? . . . 

The great plague of summer nights here is insects. 
So came the goblins about Saint Anthony. Two 
curious beetles, one of which is shaped hexagonally, 
are especially tormenting, — as they produce when 
alarmed the most atrocious conceivable smell. On 
the other hand, the singing insects are wonderful. 
A cricket called "junta" is very musical here, more 
than in Izumo, — and really seems to talk. Other 
creatures at night sing like birds. One of these is 
cooked and eaten by geisha to make their voices 
sweet. Ever most sincerely, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 147 

Dear Chamberlain, — I have just got your let- 
ter, and a copy of the Advertiser which makes me 
glad that I changed the sentence about the sailors 
in proofs. I have a great mind to subscribe for the 
Advertiser, and stop reading the Mail; — I am so 
sick of all the stuff about missionaries and Christ- 
ianity. Why can't a newspaper have mercy on 
people who don't care to have religious stuff forever 
thrust under their noses? I see the missionaries are 
still telling the people they are savages, and idol- 
aters, etc., and have been making a row at Bakkan, 
among other places. There's no truth ever told 
about these matters; what the missionaries really do 
is never published. 

I wonder if the Archduke's Indian servant is a 
Sikh. Travellers write that the Sikh policemen and 
troopers look like demigods or kings; and some illus- 
trations in the London News gave me the same 
notion. 

It rejoiced me to hear of your living in the Japan- 
ese wing, and in yukata. I am sure it is the very 
best thing you could do for health in this hot season. 
Foreign dress soaks through almost immediately, 
and then becomes a wet wrap which, breathed on by 
a cold wind, chills the lungs at once. I have been 
wearing considerably less than a yukata lately dur- 
ing the hottest part of the day; but when I go out 
in a white suit I wonder how any Japanese can 
don yofuku in July and August. No matter how 
thin, a tight-fitting dress is a torture in this heat to 
anybody accustomed to the kimono. 

I had a long letter from the editor of the Atlantic. 



148 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

He wants sketches of real Japanese life (sketches 
showing emotional character): doesn't care for 
religious or philosophical sketches. He wants, in 
short, exactly what I want, but what is very dif- 
ficult to find. The fixed policy in Kumamoto has 
been to conceal everything from me, and although 
there is an approach to kindness in other directions, 
this policy is not likely to change much. I must 
devise some means of defeating it. 

Reading over some part of " Things Japanese " the 
other day, it occurred to me that I might be able to 
speak of something not known to you about the 
household bath. Of course it is only a suggestion. 
It is true, as you say, that all the members of a 
household, in hierarchical order, use the same 
water. But the simple statement of this fact might 
create a wrong idea in European minds. The rule in 
such cases is worth recording. It is that each person 
washes outside the bath, and thoroughly rinses the 
whole body outside the bath, with hot water from 
a kanadari or other vessel, before entering into the 
tub proper. Consequently, in a household where 
this rule is observed, the servant girl who bathes 
last, will find the water nearly as clear as the Inkyo 
who bathes first. All the real washing is not done in 
the bath at all. And in some bathing-places, I have 
seen this rule strictly observed by hundreds of peo- 
ple, — as at Kitzuki. Of course among the poorer 
classes there is less nicety. 

I have been studying De Quincey, TMiittier, and 
the old ballads to pass the time (all sent me from 
Boston). How our tastes change with years. Half 



TO BASn. HALL CHAMBERLAIN 149 

of De Quincey's charm has forever vanished for me; 
and I perceive quahties which repel as much as qual- 
ities which attract. Whittier charms me much more 
now, — though, of course, he was no scholar, nor 
even a really great poet. And what most puzzles me 
is the intense sympathy he forces me to feel for 
religious emotions I do not share, and for a simple 
faith which I know to be a delusion, to be philo- 
sophically all wrong. It is like hearing a great con- 
gregation singing "Nearer, my God, to thee." No 
one can hear it without feeling his heart swell, — 
whether he believes in a soul or not. Such is Whit- 
tier's simple music, — and yet still sweeter, because 
for the dear old man, no sect ever really existed, and 
his Christ was no Jew, but only a phantom Christ 
(representing the wish of the world to believe that 
goodness is divine, and that everything wrong in this 
life will be righted). Without some such beliefs life 
would be very hard, surely, for those incapable of 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. Edith Thomas is a poet I want to introduce 
to you some day, if you do not know her well. She 
will be a surprise and a pleasure. 

P. S. 2. I agree with you about the power of that 
sketch you like in Kipling's last. Kipling only has 
seized that astonishing fact, and pulled it into the 
light, about the doing of the world's work by boys, 
— "Kingly boys" he rightly called them in his 
verse. I doubt if any other country but England 



150 LETTERS OF LATCADIO HEARN 

produces them; and in any event no other country 
could find employment for them. They are the 
results of the same school system that made a Clive. 
Much as may be said against the English education- 
al system, — its brutality, its hardness, — the pro- 
duct furnishes an iron fact in reply, not to be re- 
moved. Race, of course, is a consideration; but no 
other race could have such a system. It is a train- 
ing from childhood in self-mastery as a means to the 
mastery of men; — so that a boy of nineteen can, 
in a serious emergency, run the great Indian empire. 
While the prime necessity of life is intelligent fight- 
ing capacity, such training is as valuable as it is 
wonderful. It does not, however, produce the great 
minds as a rule, — does it? They require a gentler 
medium. I am not altogether in sympathy with the 
worship of Force in our century, — are you.f* But 
though surely not the highest subject of contempla- 
tion, it offers spectacles of splendour worthy of all art. 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

August 23, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — We 've been having ty- 
phoon weather down here too, — with sudden 
changes of atmospheric pressure which stupefy one 
in the middle of the day. This morning, for in- 
stance, I was full of poetry, — trying to write a 
tropical story. I was getting along gloriously, when 
the barometer suddenly descended and crushed all 
my fancies as a butterfly is crushed by laying a ten- 
pound weight on it. I suppose all writers who ever 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 151 

lived must have had severe struggles with the 
atmosphere. In the tropics, you know, only certain 
hours in the morning allow of work. 

That reminds me of Bates. You will find him a 
little less delightful than Wallace, but still delightful. 
And pray notice especially the beautiful emotional 
passage at the close, — and his meditations about 
returning to civilization from Para. What disap- 
points me a little both in Wallace and Bates is their 
indifference to those large and awful aspects of 
Nature which Humboldt could feel. They are not 
poets; they are not sensitive to what would be for 
you or me perpetual exaltation; their science keeps 
them wholly on the watch for the microscopically 
wonderful. 

I ordered about five months ago Symonds's 
"Renascence," but never got it, — and never will 
from the same house, as I have made up my mind to 
buy nothing more from K. & W. You will find the 
work somewhat prolix, but of rare interest neverthe- 
less. The man who has best succeeded, however, in 
putting some phases of mediaeval Italy before us 
in artistic guise is, I think, Yriarte. You have seen 
his wonderful works on Florence, Rimini, Venice, 
and the touching monograph on Francesca. The 
trouble is, of course, that these books represent only 
chapters, and that they are as expensive as they are 
beautiful. Oh! to live in Paris, just for the sake of 
books ! 

His Austrian Highness made the Nagasaki folk 
very angry. He went incog to the shops, while the 
big residents were waiting for him at the landing. So 



152 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

they thought he was only a naval oflScer, and let him 
make very cheap bargains. Great was the wrath on 
finding out who the customer was. . . . 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

August 28, 1893. ' 

Dear Chamberlain, — I don't wish to perse- 
cute you with letters; but this is the close of the 
leisure season, and I want to make the most of it, 

— and I forgot some things. 

Here is one : — At the Nagasaki Hotel I saw two 
large bookcases. I looked into them through the 
locked glass, and saw a glorious half- Republican, 
half -poetical, choice of books. All Voltaire, I think, 

— and Diderot, — and Taine, — and Renan, — 
and Michelet, — and Baudelaire, — and Flaubert, 

— and Maxime du Camp, — and a splendid Balzac, 

— and almost everything I could wish for. A mind 
kindred to my own had formed that library. Two 
large bookcases; — all the books in clumsy colonial 
bindings. A Japanese boy, to whom I had been 
a little kind, and who appeared to be terrified 
when he spoke to me (he always looked about to 
see if the other Japanese were watching him, — for 
they used to abuse him whenever he spoke to me), 
asked me if I would not like him to get the key, — 
so I could read. As I had little time before me, I said 
no. At 2.30 A. M. — the landlady first spoke to me. 
She had been called out of bed by anger, — because 
a Russian lodger had not only gone away without 
telling her, but had sent three young tittering girls 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 153 

to occupy his room during his absence. In her desire 
for sympathy she told me that although the Russes 
sont les amis de la France, — Us ne sont pas les amis 
de la France jusqua ce point la ! I sympathized, and 
she told me she had lost her husband only four days 
before. I spoke of the books. She said: "Oh, yes, 
my husband was very instructed ! — he collected all 
those books. We were long in the silk business; then 
we had a French newspaper, UEcho du Japan. My 
husband's sickness forced us to come here. I am now 
alone and must be tres severe." She spoke charm- 
ingly, with grace and intelligence, — a fine keen 
woman of the world, — probably over forty, but 
looking younger. Then, with a charming bow, she 
bade me good-night. The desolation of the house 
and of her own brave worldly little soul still haunts 
me; and I wonder often, situated as she is, sur- 
rounded by Japanese whom I can plainly see to be 
rascals, what she is going to do. May the Gods 
protect her, and forgive me for having abused her 
beautiful but most d — bly managed hotel. 

Oh! you must be happy to-day! It is Aki. The 
sunshine is whiter. Emerald and ruby lightnings, 
— the flash of dragon-flies, are playing everywhere. 
All the shadows are sharp as the edge of a knife. 
The Season of Great Light. 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

August 30, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Edith Thomas is perhaps 
the best of American poets, after Aldrich and 



154 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Holmes; — she has written only short pieces, but all 
are exquisite in thought and finish. She is a new 
growth, — not yet very famous. I can recommend 
her without fear to the severest critic on earth. I 
met her in New York, — to thank her for the pleas- 
ure her work had given me in the tropics. A thin, 
sepulchral, black-robed, goblin-like creature, — and 
yet radiating goodness through her mourning, — a 
light oozing through a pitcher of obsidian. She seems 
to know life only as concrete pain. And still her 
work has a lightness, a spring-glow, a beauty that 
would seem inspired by the possession of all earthly 
happiness. 

... I am not insensible to the charm of popular 
faith in Catholic countries. You know I have 
always written tenderly of it. But I can't dissociate 
the thing called Christianity from all my life's ex- 
periences of hypocrisy, and cruelty, and villainy. 
— from conventional wickedness and conventional 
dreariness and ugliness and dirty austerities and 
long faces and Jesuitry and infamous distortion of 
children's brains. My experiences have been too 
heavily weighted with all this to allow me to be 
just. I can't. I never, never found religious beauty 
in a church, — never out of the heart of a man or 
a woma,n of the poorer classes, — no ! the poorest 
classes. I know I am rabid. I can't help it, but I try 
to control it in my writings. By the way, I have 
heard that I can get a permit to go to Manila for 
several months if I make application next year. 
I wonder whether they would wall me up alive 
if I went into one of their fortress-like convents. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 155 

I am writing a sketch to be entitled '*The Stone 
Buddha," a revery on eternal mysteries at the foot 
of an old Shaka in a cemetery behind our college. 
The thing has been growing slowly in my mind dur- 
ing more than a year. Therefore it ought to be 
something good, perhaps you think. But I fear not. 
It will be very short indeed. 

The other day I got lost in the mountains. What 
a fearful thing to lose one's way in a confusion of 
valleys, — each exactly like another, and all the 
paths, between rice fields and barley fields twisting 
into infinite mysteries. A kind peasant guided me 
home, after I had lost myself out of sight in a wood, 
trying to escape from the maze. 

I have promised to ask if you collect Japanese 
almanacs, for 200 or 400 years back. Having done 
so, my conscience is relieved. 

Ever most truly, Lafcadio Hearn. 

September 1, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Many thanks for the 
Advertiser, and the kind loan of Zola's last, — which 
I wanted to read. . . . 

Tell me, do you think a mathematician can be a 
poet? — that is, do you know any mathematician 
who is? I do not mean that the mathematical 
faculty per se is antagonistic to the feeling that cre- 
ates poetry. But the mental cost of the faculty 
(physiologically, the nerve cost) is so great that it 
seems to me to leave simpler faculties undeveloped, 
or atrophied. You know that a want of sympathy 
is said to be characteristic of mathematicians. 



156 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

I must write you my sensations about Zola so 
soon as I have devoured him. Jules Lemaitre, I 
think, first did real justice to Zola. Zola has always 
believed and proclaimed himself a realist. If there is 
anything which Zola is not, — it is a realist. His 
mind conceives the horrible as Dore's mind con- 
ceived the ghastly and the nightmarish. He is the 
idealist of the Horrible, the Foul, the Brutal, the 
Abominable. In this, he is greater than any man 
who has followed the same impulses. As you say, 
I cannot find that anything but evil can be the 
general outcome of such studies of human nature. 
Swift had the same spirit. It is a morbid one, of 
course. But Zola represents the extreme swing 
of the pendulum between severe reserve and frantic 
license. His school must die with him. He himself 
has done so much that no one will ever again in this 
century try to follow him. I am sorry you read *'La 
Terre" last. The best of the series, I think, is " Ger- 
minal," and after it, "La Debacle." You must have 
read "La Debacle." The chapter containing that de- 
scription of the rushing by of the Prussian artillery 
shows Zola at his best, — a tremendous nightmare. 
There is nothing obscene in "La Debacle," scarcely. 

(I see even Anderson makes serious mistakes. He 
confounds Kotoshiro-nushi-no-kami with a totally 
different deity, — representing him as a child of 
Izanami and Izanaji.) After all I can't make much 
worse errors in my book than much better men have 
done, eh? But for this, I have to thank Kojiki, 
above all else. Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 157 

September 3, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Well, I 've read " Le Doc- 
teur Pascal; " and after reading it, I read the Times' s 
criticism. It was a good criticism from the analyt- 
ical side, but struck me as wrong in two points. I 
confess I have not read all the " Comedie Humaine" 
(I never had a chance to borrow it, and did not care 
to buy it, because there was higher literature to buy) . 
But Balzac was a great artist in ideal lines quite for- 
eign to Zola's genius. Take for example " La Peau de 
Chagrin;" — the terrible human symbolism of that 
story will keep it forever among the great Parables 
of World Literature. Take the wondrous " Contes 
Drolatiques" (with the equally wondrous engrav- 
ings by Dore) ; — take, in spite of Froude's fierce 
denunciations, " Le Pere Goriot." There is a great 
deep marvellous art there, — a spontaneous giant 
utterance of art, coupled with strangest delicacy. 
There is vice and horror; but how beautifully bal- 
anced with virtue and heroism ! Balzac has tender- 
ness; Balzac has vast sympathies; Balzac has the 
charm of highest imagination. Where is Zola's ten- 
derness? where are Zola's sympathies? and how 
enormously morbid is Zola's imagination. Nothing 
will ever, I think, persuade me to place Zola above 
Balzac, — though I confess Zola's greatness. The 
Times' s critic seems to treat Zola's scientific theories 
seriously. I don't know that they would bear real 
scientific analysis at all. Doubtless his details are 
carefully studied; — I speak only of his plan, his 
whole plan. Starting out with the undeniable fact 
that Zola's studies are essentially morbid in spirit. 



158 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

his theory, however seemingly scientific in the small 
limits of a single story, must prove itself vicious on 
the larger scale of twenty volumes. The Jukes' epi- 
sode of heredity would not be a justification. How- 
ever, I am not competent to deal with the facts 
here, — only with the general value of a result ob- 
tained upon an unreal, because a morbid, basis. 

The other statement of the Times' s critic I could 
not agree with, would be his suggestion that this is 
perhaps the best of Zola's series. To me it is one of 
the weakest of all. It has a few nude pictures of a 
woman "divinely slender and young" who compares 
the beauty of her own flesh to satin and milk and 
snow. These are pretty; but they are mere sensual 
genre-studies. They don't compare with that mon- 
strous personification of machinery in " Germinal," 
or the battle pictures of "La Debacle," or the won- 
derful figure of the Jew banker in "L'Argent," as 
works of art. And there are no other pictures in the 
story, — real pictures, — except that of the Spon- 
taneous Combustion. (By the way, I may be mis- 
taken, but I am under the impression that Sponta- 
neous Combustion of this sort is a myth.) Still the 
book is a great book, — well worth reading. And 
the characters seem wonderfully alive. I would not 
care to read it twice (the test of the highest art) ; 
but I would not miss reading it once. 

After reading Zola, the sky always seems less 
blue, and the sun much further away. By the way, 
did you ever see "Les Soirees de Medan"? Zola 
seems to me at his very best in "L'Attaque du 
Moulin." I think there are six stories in the book, — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 159 

each written by a different pupil of Zola. (Only one 
afterwards rose to greatness, — Guy de Maupas- 
sant.) And indeed Maupassant never excelled the 
story he contributed to " Les Soirees," — "Boule-de- 
Suif ." All the stories except Zola's ( !) are diabolic- 
ally immoral ; but it is the immorality of artists, — 
not feeble, but vigorously cynical, like the art of 
Diderot's or Voltaire's "Contes." "Le No. 7" is a 
very fine piece of brutal realism. How curious that 
the man who did it could never do anything else! 

I have been trying to think what all this sort of 
work will produce in time. Its own time is already 
past; but all that has ever existed as a popular vogue 
must continue to exercise some influence in another 
way. Perhaps the effect of this pessimism may, after 
all, prove less of value in the reaction it provokes 
than in the new perceptions of life's problem which 
it forces. However morbidly exaggerated the teach- 
ing of it, there may have been need of such teaching. 
It is true that we advance by ideals ; and yet we must 
not allow the Ideal, as a mere abstract, to veil from 
us the real horror and misery and pity of struggling 
life. Perhaps the fault of the old idealism was its 
artistic exclusiveness ; and Zola was right in calling 
it a "drawing-room Idealism." Such art could 
appeal to a very small section of the human mind. 
The future needs a fiction to appeal to the hearts of 
all who can read and feel. The cunning of it is given 
to but few ; — yet I think Rudyard Kipling is of 
those thus favoured by the Gods. 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



160, LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

September 7, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I suspect you are more 
than right about a want of something in Symonds. 
The Atlantic critic said it was the lack of the 
story -teller's power, essential to the really great his- 
torian. I think, too, that Symonds must have felt 
the hand of Death upon him, and have handled his 
material hurriedly, — without that thorough diges- 
tion of it necessary for dramatic effect. 

I have never been in Italy since a child, and know 
it only from books. When six years old I spoke two 
languages, — Romaic and Italian, both now utterly 
forgotten. But what a delight I should have to visit 
Italy now. From my reading, and from pictures, I 
suppose what you say about the inferiority of the 
Italian Cathedrals must be true. Indeed the climate 
could scarcely be suited to Gothic architecture, eh.^^ 
But I would like to know whether Milan is an excep- 
tion in your judgment. Taine says it is not. But 
Tennyson cries, — 

O Milan! O the chanting choirs, — 

The giant windows' blazoned fires, — 

The height, the depth, the gloom, the glory! — 

A mount of marble, — a hundred spires ! 

Now this does give an idea of imperial Gothic 
magnificence. But is it true ? 

On the subject of Japanese smells. No one who 
has lived much in the tropics is likely to be bothered 
by smells in Japan, — except when feeling unwell. I 
was only badly bothered in Oki. I fear you could not 
bear Saigo; for even the Japanese, in all their houses 
there, keep incense burning. Though very fond of 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 161 

daikon, I don't like to smell it while being cooked; 
and the smells made by the scavengers are, of course, 
severe temporary trials. In Tokyo I never noticed 
any smells, nor in Kyoto. The sense of smell varies 
much in different persons. A friend in the Southern 
States had such a faculty that he could track a deer 
by scent, as well as one of his own hounds. He was 
a polished gentleman of the old school, and appre- 
ciated delicate odours; but he told me that his faculty 
was a great suffering to him. There is certainly no 
doubt of one fact, — that by living constantly in the 
midst of any particular odour, one finally ceases to 
detect its existence. 

What you say about the great poets is most true. 
Still, I think we lose a great deal of pleasure by con- 
fining ourselves to the Masters. I read every poet I 
can get hold of. I read therefore a vast heap of rub- 
bish. But I am rewarded by the discovery of rubies, 
and diamonds, and emeralds. Take Joaquin Miller. 
No man has written at times more absurdly. But 
what divine surprises and jets of light he has at 
times, — as in that magnificent outcry to the Plains, 
beginning with the words "Room! — room — " or 
as in that verse, — 

I saw the lightning's gleaming rod 
Reach forth, and write upon the sky 
The awful autograph of God, — 

or in those lines from the "Ship in the Desert ": — 

A land of Silences, — a land 
Of shoreless deserts strewn with sand 
Where Desolation's dwelling is; — 
Where, wandering from day to day. 
You say, "To-morrow sure we come 



162 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

To rest in some cool resting place," — 
And yet you journey on through space 
While seasons pass, and are struck dumb ' 
With Marvelat the distances. . . . 

I quote from memory; so may do injustice to my 
favourites. But I must venture to close by trying to 
quote from James Maurice Thomson. Who cares 
for James Maurice Thomson.'^ Yet he wrote "Ata- 
lanta's Race": — 

When Spring is old, and dewy winds 
Blow from the south, with odours sweet, 

I see my love, in shadowy groves, 
Speed down dark aisles on shining feet. 

She throws a kiss, and bids me run 
In whispers sweet as roses' breath; 

I know I cannot win the race. 
And, at the end, I know is death. 

Yet joyfully I bare my limbs. 

Anoint me with the tropic breeze, 
And feel through every sinew run 

The vigour of Hippomenes. 

Oh! race of Love, we all have run 

Thy happy course through groves of spring. 

And cared not while we lost or won 
For life or death, or anything! 

Imagine how utterly foreign to Japanese feeling all 
this! Could not even be explained. 
Faithfully ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



September 9, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Conder's book on Gar- 
dens rather knocks my attempt to write about the 
philosophy of the Eternal Feminine, — West and 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 163 

East. I had imagined no sex-idea connected with 
Japanese love of nature. But it seems there is a sex- 
idea, and a pairing idea even, in the arrangement of 
stones. Of course it is different from our idea. But 
it is there. All my Japanese experience convinces 
me of this fact: " There is nothing absent from Japan- 
ese life tvhich ive imagine to be absent ; all we have is 
there, — only the colour is different T" My first ideas 
were like Lowell's, about the absence of individ- 
ualitv. There are millions of individualities, but 
one has to live close to them to discover them. They 
are strong, but their tints are not the same. 

I believe I may have been vaguely half right. Our 
sexual idea is probably nude and Greek, and that of 
the Japanese robed and Oriental. Perhaps Japanese 
art might say to the Western idealist something like 
what a Minister of Spain said to the fellow who 
wanted to present the Queen with a pair of silk 
stockings, "Know, sirrah! that the Queen of Spain 
has no legs!" Might not Japanese art, as I suggest, 
observe to us, "Know, sirrah! that Nature has 
sex, but not any geometrical lines of thigh, breast, 
or of those parts which inspired your Venus Kalli- 
pyge, and which you are always thinking about!" 
Yet I don't see how to say this in an English essay 
with proper convincing force. 

The other day I was astonished to hear the bam- 
boo curtain suspended in front of doorways called a 
kirishitan. Asking for explanation, I was told this: 
The peculiarity of the bamboo curtain is that it 
prevents any one outside from seeing into the house, 
while those inside the house can see through it very 



164 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

plainly everything which happens outside. And this 
is like magic. Now a Christian is a sort of wicked 
magician: therefore the curtain is called a Christ- 
ian. I suppose this must be from the days of the 
padres. What do you think of it for an etymology.'' 
If you ever do get to work on that much-to-be- 
hoped-for illustrated edition of "Things Japanese," 
don't fail to call on me for anything you think I can 
offer in the line of contributions. 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

September 14, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — The first of your two un- 
answered letters brought me woeful ideas ; — I tried 
to answer it, but failed to do so to my own satisfac- 
tion. I found fault with your doctor, and with Miya- 
noshita, and with all sorts of things, — without 
being able to suggest any more satisfactory means 
of improvement. But your next letter brought me 
joy; and I am full of hope again that you will pass 
a good winter. 

I am ashamed to say I know little of Pascal except 
the " Pensees;" but I am going to send for him and 
read him through, — together with Rousseau and Boi- 
leau, whom I have known hitherto only by detached 
works. What you tell me about Symonds is simply 
awful. It was especially the Italian literature of the 
** Renascence'* I hoped to be made acquainted with. 
Yriarte, in his "Un Condottiere au XVI siecle," 
made me hungry for more knowledge on the subject. 
Rossetti gave us delicious specimens of the pre- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 165 

Raphaelite poets, from 1200 to 1300; but how fill up 
the awful lacuna that Symonds has left. By the 
way, I suppose you know the French have reprinted 
Burchard, — in Latin, of course, — the terrified 
secretary of Alexander Borgia. I think the pub- 
lisher is Ernest Leroux. What a reading that would 
be! 

You are right about Holmes being very light as a 
poet. I think you would like Aldrich more on closer 
acquaintance. His "Judith" is worthy almost of 
Tennyson. Bret Harte, I think, is great in his pathos 
and his weirdness, — especially in such pieces as 
"Concepcion de Argillas," "Por el Rey," — "Miss 
Blanche's Rose," etc. . . . 

My grind has begun again. This term twenty-one 
hours a week. Every year, I remark, they try to 
make my work more practical, and less theoretical. 
I have no books, and now three fresh conversation- 
classes. Japanese students do seem to lack one 
thing, — spontaneity. Conversation must be al- 
ways painfully forced by questions. Original ques- 
tions, original suggestions, original ideas are sel- 
dom uttered. They are written sometimes; but out 
of four hundred — no, out of fully one thousand 
— that I have taught, I do not remember ten ac- 
customed to ask or to say original things. Per- 
haps there were eight. Out of that eight, two are 
dead. 

I have no belief in the worth of a literary course 
for Japanese students. The standard is too low. No 
class has suflBcient mastery of English to feel an 
author, nor even to understand the difference be- 



166 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

tween poetry and prose. "Teacher! it is no use to 
put that into rhyme for us — we see no difference 
between prose and verse." I fancy the Hterary 
course in the University itself must be of Httle value 
to those who follow it. The great rush is to the 
Law! The reason seems to be that this branch of 
study requires especially the strong faculty of 
Japanese students, — Memory; while the Scientific 
and Technological branches require a faculty sel- 
dom developed among them to any high degree, — 
Mathematics. At least I imagine this to be the case. 
One disheartening fact the teacher has to face is 
that he need never expect to be able to influence his 
classes much through imagination — so powerful an 
auxiliary elsewhere, — not because his students have 
no imagination, but because he can offer them no- 
thing capable of stimulating such imagination as 
they have. Now what the devil is the use of trying 
to teach English literature to a class totally insens- 
ible to European imagination .^^ It is pure waste of 
time and money. 

. . . The weather has become diabolically change- 
able — approaching winter. Heavy shock of earth- 
quake the other night. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

September 16, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Many thanks for the 
Eclectic which I read with much pleasure, and 
return to-day by this mail. I see that Pearson's 
book is making a great sensation. As I wrote to you 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 167 

long ago, I have been inclined to the same conclu- 
sions as Pearson reaches, for some years; but I 
arrived at them by different methods. My life in the 
tropics taught me what tropical life means for white 
races, — after the trial of three hundred years; — 
America taught me something about the formidable 
character of the Chinese, and taught me also the 
enormous cost of existing civilization to the Western 
individual. I think it highly probable that the w^hite 
races, after having bequeathed all their knowledge 
to the Orient, will ultimately disappear, just as the 
ichthyosaurus and other marvellous creatures have 
disappeared, — simply because of the cost of their 
structure. There is something very sinister in the 
fact that the cost of life to an Englishman is just 
about twenty times the cost of life to an Oriental, 
nor does the difference of the two in mental capacity 
and energy by any means correspond to the differ- 
ence in ability to live. I have sent for Pearson. His 
critics are very amusing so far. The Reverend one 
finds fault with him because he does n't consider 
*'Gawd" as a factor in the case; — Harrison, be- 
cause he does n't count upon Idealism, whatever 
that may be, as a factor. Idealism, in one sense, 
certainly leads to moral and aesthetic development; 
but neither moral nor aesthetic development can be 
counted on as factors in the mere struggle to live; — 
while we are bound to recognize the terrible truth 
that "the law of Murder is the law of growth." 

Please just glance at the English words at the top 
of this "ad. " from the Asahi Shimbun. |You will not 
venture to include this display of Westernization in 



168 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

"English as She is Japped;" but it will serve to 
lighten the humours of a gloomy day. 
Ever most faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

September 20, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — No, you never told me 
about that delightful old man before : it was one of 
the subjects, however, which I wanted to talk with 
you about if we ever got time, — because I knew 
from the preface of "Things Japanese" there was 
a romance there. What a charming sketch you could 
make, or give to me to make. Perhaps you are 
the only one in all Japan who could make it; — for 
the old men are all dead or hidden away in that 
obscurity which precedes death. Besides, even if one 
could now find such an old man, he would not now 
be so charming : he would have seen too much of the 
new, he would be changed in soul and in costume; he 
would have laid aside much of the beautiful naivete 
which you saw, together with his queue and his 
swords. 

Each new generation of students seems to me a 
little harder-featured, more unsmiling, more sullen, 
more lacking in spontaneity, and less courteous, 
than the preceding. I don't much love them. They 
are very, very queer in Kyiishu. While my old 
Izumo boys still write to me, these seldom even say 
good-bye to any of their teachers before going to 
Tokyo, This year, indeed, they sent me a deputa- 
tion; but last year none; and the other teachers have 
told me that, on their return from Tokyo during the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 169 

vacation, they don't even call on their old masters. 
There is something dead wrong in this brutally- 
apathetic attitude of teachers and students; and 
that something wrong must have an ill-effect upon 
the after-life of both. I don't like it; and if all gov- 
ernment-schools are so, I had rather teach — were 
it possible — in a Buddhist charity school. 

... A curious instance of Japanese character came 
to my notice the other day. I was informed by letter 
that some Christian students, among whom was one 
of my old pupils, had been trying to obey the teach- 
ing of some beastly bigot by refusing to show respect 
to the shades at some Shinto temple. They were not 
kindly treated by the other students, as you may 
imagine. I sympathized much with one of them, — 
a very sweet-hearted boy, — and wrote him a long 
letter of explanation and reproach. I put the mat- 
ter on the ground of common-sense politeness and 
common heart-religion. Then I hesitated. I felt 
convinced that if I sent such a letter to English 
students, on the same sort of an occasion, the result 
would be pure mischief only. Finally I sent it to a 
teacher, instead, requesting him first to read it, and 
to hold or deliver as he deemed best. He delivered. 
To my pleasant surprise, the result has been of the 
happiest. The Xn boys held council, discussed the 
points, and nobly confessed in a public way they 
had been misled. They remain Xns, but I don't 
think, from what has been told me, that they will 
make any more such mistakes. This is quite nice, 
— is n't it.?> 



170 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

September 23, 1893, 

Dear Chamberlain, — My old Inkyo has amus- 
ing small misfortunes. He likes to go out for a walk, 
but generally loses his way, — and tries to help him- 
self home again by looking at the tops of the moun- 
tains. Sometimes he succeeds. But when the day is 
foggy, and he cannot see the mountains, he has to 
ask. And as he speaks the old Izumo dialect, and 
cannot understand the Kumamoto folk at all — the 
questioning avails him nothing. So he sits in a store 
somewhere and waits till we send out to look for 
him. Then, when we get him home, he tells us the 
history of his adventures — which are always funny. 
To-day they picked his pocket in a crowd. It is a 
great crazy -festival day (Hachimau), — on which 
they drive horses through the streets, curiously 
caparisoned, with shouts of Boshitari ! Chosen Boshi- 
tari! said to be a memorial-cry from the time of 
Kato-Kiyomasa, who prayed to Hachimau before 
going to Chosen. It is a rough festival! At all the 
larger houses the horse is halted; and the crowd is 
supplied with sake and salt fish. I contribute, of 
course. Each street has its own horse, and its own 
band of runners — in gay attire; and all bands have 
a captain, who superintends the visits, and sees that 
the sake is given only to his own men. So nobody is 
imposed on. But the old man went out to see a 
dance — a No dance; and fell among strangers. His 
loss was trifling; but he became impressed by the 
difference between Kyushu and Izumo crowds. 

The other night we had a singular festival next 
door. A teacher of dancing — an old woman of our 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 171 

neighbourhood — died last year; and on the anni- 
versary of her death, her ihai were placed on a plat- 
form erected for the occasion next door, and offer- 
ings set before it. Then all the little girls she had 
taught — from four years up — were brought to dance 
before the ihai to please her spirit. The dainty little 
fairy darlings. I went behind the scenes and saw all 
the dressing. The children were all faultless till the 
dance was over — but then being tired they would 
cry a little; and their mothers would carry them 
home, — looking like wonderful dolls in their tiny 
gorgeous Kagura-dresses. Surely a Japanese baby- 
girl is the sweetest thing in all this world. 

Beyond the other side of the garden I hear and 
see something much less pleasing — the training of 
a little geisha. The child is very young; but she is 
obliged to sing nearly seven hours every day. I can 
tell what time it is by the tone of weariness in her 
voice. Sometimes she breaks down and cries to be 
let alone in vain. They do not beat her — but she 
must sing. Some day she will revenge herself on the 
world for this — and "sarve it right!" 

The tsuku-tsuku-boshi is not yet dead; but it 
sings only at long intervals. There is great heat still 
— alternating with spells of sudden cold — each a 
little bit sharper than the last. Here winter and 
summer come and go by sudden jerks. What a 
funny country it is. There is nothing steady or per- 
manent in Nature. There is nothing steady or 
permanent in the race-character. And for fear that 
anything should be allowed to evolve and crystal- 
lize into anything resembling order, everything 



172 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

is being constantly remodelled and removed and 
reformed ! What, what can come out of all this arti- 
ficial fluidity! ^ 4. 4. i 
•^ Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



September 24, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — The pendulum has swung 
to the right again; and the blue devils have van- 
ished ; and Kumamoto seems a good place to stay in 
for another two years. What do you think of that ! 
— I wonder whether Watson's poems had anything 
to do with it. I have by no means read them all yet. 
This poetry is like wedding-cake: one must eat only 
a little at a time. "The Dream of Man" is high 
sublimity; and urged me to fresh work at once on 
my "Stone Buddha." I was considering exactly 
the same puzzle; but my theory, luckily, is quite the 
reverse. It is that the motive and creative power 
of the universe are burnt-out passions and fears 
and sorrows, which only transformed as forces by 
death must continue to make birth and rebirth till 
such time as they reach a second and supreme form 
of transformation by the triumph in all worlds of 
Buddha's own theory. Alas! I can't write poetry. 

Reading the introduction, or dedication, to "Lon- 
don," there flashed to me memory of a mightier 
poem of the same kind by a smaller poet: — do you 
remember the colossal power of Alexander Smith's 
"Edinburgh".'^ Smith could not have written "The 
Dream of Man," but he felt the grim heart of a city 
as I think no one else — certainly no Latin — ever 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 173 

felt it. Indeed Latin lands have not yet developed 
that awful thing, an industrial centre, as the Eng- 
lish and the Americans have, — the industrial cen- 
tre, whose blood is steam, whose nerves are steel, 
— devouring the weak, consuming the strong, — the 
machine in whose cogwork each man knows himself 
caught and doomed to whirl forever. 

There are bits here and there that make me think 
of Villon. (Of course you know Payne's wonderful 
translations.) I was a little startled by the verses 
on Oscar Wilde. Why do we feel that a poet like 
Watson has no right to be a mocker, to say cruel 
things to his fellow man.^^ We feel the same in read- 
ing Tennyson's terrible satire on Bulwer Lytton, 
and Browning's brutal anger at Edward FitzGerald. 
I think we regard it as we regard an obscene poem 
by a priest, or in other words a sort of sacrilege to 
self. We have not yet learned (as I think we shall 
some day) to confess aloud that the highest poetry 
is a religion, and its world-priests the true prophets 
and teachers. But we feel it. Therefore we are 
shocked and pained when these betray any sign of 
those paltry or mean passions above which their art 
at other times lifts us. 

To-day I must tell you the Legend of my house. 
There are, you know, two kinds of Haunters in 
Japan, — the Living and the Dead. He who built 
this house to spend his age in was happy in all 
things, except a child. So he and his wife made 
agreement with a girl to bear a child for them, under 
certain conditions: Rachel and her handmaid. She 
gave him a boy; and he sent her away, — hiring a 



174 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

nurse for the boy. But he did not keep his promise 
in all things, — and even his wife blamed him. 
Whereat he said nothing. Presently, for the first 
time in his life, he fell ill. The physician (a garrison 
doctor), after trying what could be done, declared 
he must die. The Kannushi told him why — "there 
was an iki-ryo in his home." So others said. Then 
remorse seized him. They tried to find the girl. She 
was gone — lost in the forty millions, God knows 
where. And the days dragged in uttermost pain. 
Then came a hyakusho, saying he had heard where 
the woman was; he might be able to bring her back 
within a week. But the sick man said, — "No, she 
would not forgive in her heart, it is too late." And he 
re-turned his face to the wall and died. Then the 
widow, and the little boy, and the pet cat went 
away; and I took up my dwelling in the house. The 
iki-ryo has passed. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

September 27, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — To-day there came to the 
school the whole Normal School of Kiu-Kiu, — 
the Shihan-Gakko of Horai. They were received in 
the Gymnastic Hall, where all our boys were drawn 
up in hollow square. Then the first student of our 
highest class made a speech of welcome; and the 
first of the Loochoran students responded briefly. 
The director was a Japanese. 

Except that the islanders had darker skins, they 
looked just like Japanese. They wore white cotton 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 175 

trousers, and short close blue jackets. They go 
hence to Dazaifu, to visit the Temple of Tenjin, and 
to Hakata, etc. What impressed me was the curious 
formalism of the whole reception. It ought to have 
been (by European code) highly enthusiastic. It was 
all silent and expressionless as a phantom meeting, 
— though the classes were broken for it. What curi- 
ous souls ! — How much would I not give to be able 
to see into them ! 

I have conquered the first vexation of licking my 
cubs into shape. They are good boys, — as a whole; 
but each new class comes in absolutely savage. 
Only the Gods know how they have been trained. It 
takes real trouble for a while to get them into the 
regular drill. And you know how a foreign teacher 
is placed — he has no moral support whatever, and 
must smooth everything himself. I have never been 
obliged to complain — but I feel, if I did, that the 
blame of the result would be rather for me than for 
the offenders. The whole idea is that a good teacher 
should be able to keep his crew in hand ; if he com- 
plains, it is a sign that he is wrong ! There is some 
sense in the policy, but it is too d — bly general. 

Speaking of the oddity of the reception of our 
guests from Horai, reminds me of another queer fact 
I want to chat with you about. It affords a strik- 
ing proof of the fact that any foreigner who, without \ 
very considerable experiences, ventures to draw in- 
ferences about Japanese conduct is sure to be dead 
wrong. 

You remember my story about the iJd-ryo. It is 
true, of course. Now listen to the odd sequel. The 



176 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

people blamed the girl very much. They attributed 
to her the death of the man who had been unkind to 
her. They sympathized with her, but they blamed 
her. 

Here comes the puzzle. Why did they blame her? 
Perhaps you don't perceive the whole face of the 
puzzle yet. She was not blamed as a witch. She 
was not blamed for sorcery. But she was blamed for 
the death — caused by the haunting of the iki-ryo. 

Now the sending of an iki-ryo is not voluntary at 
all. Other Things (with a capital "T") may be sent. 
But an iki-ryo goes forth quite independently of the 
will of the person from whom it emanates, and even 
without the knowledge of that person. 

How then could the people blame the woman for 
the coming of the iki-ryo and the death of the man.f^ 

Well, they blamed her for being too angry, — 
because anger secretly nursed may cause an iki-ryo 
to form, and therefore she ought to have known bet- 
ter than to allow herself to be so angry! 

Who could divine such an explanation of the 
facts in the case.f* Eh? 

Faithfully ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

October 2, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I think you are right 
about Etagima, — especially as my little woman 
would be very lonesome in such a place. What 
attracted me especially was the idea of the divine 
Sea, — the smell of it, — the swirl and the sound of 
it and the soul of it, — a chance to swim every day. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 177 

and to watch the changing face of the water. That 
would be heaven, — in days to come. 

I don't know how to praise Watson, He is fine, 
fine ! — deHcate, deep, penetrant. I am going to 
return him, together with the Pascal. What a 
genius was P. ; yet one cannot help regretting that 
so much genius and wit and charm of style had to be 
used up simply in attacking error. What would not 
Milton too have given us had he not wasted his eyes 
and his years in polemics.'^ 

Would you not like to read Fronde's *' Spanish 
Story of the Armada"? And I will soon have Pear- 
son for you. He is a little ponderous; but a thinker 
worth feeling. He is not, however, a man of magical 
style, like Harrison, who grips your hand, and makes 
you feel the warmth of the pulse in it. Pearson has 
no pulse. He is just as cold and keen as Herbert 
Spencer, to whom, curious! — he makes but a single 
reference, though I can see that Spencer was his 
intellectual milk. How selfish authors sometimes 
are to their teachers! . . . 

I have been studying Japanese babies. I have 
none of my own yet. But there is a pretty custom. 
When a woman is about to become a mother, she 
borrows a baby; and it is thought an honour to lend 
it. Of course it is petted extraordinarily; but no 
amount of petting could spoil the child now in the 
house. It is only six months old, but expresses in 
a supreme degree all Japanese virtues. For example, 
it never cries or shows vexation. It invariably 
smiles when smiled at. It is docile to the degree of 
going to sleep whenever bidden, and of laughing 



178 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

immediately as soon as it is awakened. Sometimes 
I feel downright afraid of it; it knows infinitely too 
much ; and I strongly suspect that it still remembers 
all its former births. My own child certainly will 
never be such an angel. This is the Buddha himself. 
I wonder that lotos flowers as large as chariot wheels 
do not rise up through the floor, and that all the 
dead trees in the neighbourhood have not begun to 
blossom. 

Another visitor comes of its own accord. It is a 
girl; and its name is Bamboo. It is fourteen months 
old. It walks into the house, and gravely salutes 
each inhabitant. Then it points to each tree in the 
garden, and says "Ki!" Then it points to the stones 
and says "is' I!"; always putting its finger to its 
mouth afterwards. Each day it has a new word. It 
loved me till it saw me one day in yofuku. I fear 
its ancestral recollections are not good ; for it cried 
loudly and fled, — mistaking me for a policeman (all 
in white). Now Missy Bamboo is the child of poor 
but honest parents. But, O Missy Bamboo, what 
were you in the previous birth.'* that you should 
fear a nice, good policeman.'* 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

October 11, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I am thinking it is time 
to write you — though there is no news. Suppose I 
write you of one day of my life as a sample. I don't 
see why I should n't — though I would not write it 
to anybody else on either side the world. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 179 

Morning, 6 a. m. — The little alarm clock rings. 
Wife rises and wakes me, — with the salutation de 
rigeur of old Samurai days. I get myself into a 
squatting posture, draw the never-extinguished 
hibachi to the side of the futons, and begin to smoke. 
The servants enter, prostrate themselves, and say 
good morning to the danna-sama, and proceed to 
open the to. Meanwhile in the other chambers the 
little oil lamps have been lighted before the tablets 
of the ancestors, and the Buddhist (not the Shinto 
deities) — and prayers are being said, and offerings 
to the ancestors made. (Spirits are not supposed to 
eat the food offered them, — only to absorb some of 
its living essence. Therefore the offerings are very 
small.) Already the old men are in the garden, 
saluting the rising sun, and clapping their hands, 
and murmuring the Izumo prayers. I stop smok- 
ing, and make my toilet on the Engawa. 

7 A. M. — Breakfast. Very light — eggs and toast. 
Lemonade with a spoonful of whiskey in it; and 
black coffee. Wife serves; and I always make her 
eat a little with me. But she eats sparingly, — as 
she must afterward put in an appearance at the 
regular family breakfast. Then kurumaya comes. 
I begin to put on my yofuku. I did not at first 
like the Japanese custom, — that the wife should 
give each piece of clothing in regular order, see to 
the pockets, etc.; — I thought it encouraged lazi- 
ness in a man. But when I tried to oppose it, I found 
I was giving offence and spoiling pleasure. So I sub- 
mit to the ancient rule. 

7.30 A. M. — All gather at the door to say Sayo- 



180 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

nara; but the servants stand outside, — according 
to the new custom requiring the servants to stand 
when the master is in yqfuku. I hght a cigar, — kiss 
a hand extended to me (this is the only imported 
custom), and pass to the school. 

{Blank of 4- to 5 hours.) 

Returning, at the call of the kurumaya, — all 
come to the door again as before, to greet me with 
the O-Kaeri; and I have to submit to aid in undress- 
ing, and in putting on the kimono, obi, etc. The 
kneeling-cushion and hibachi are ready. There is a 
letter from Chamberlain San, or Mason San. Dinner. 

The rest eat only when I am finished: because 
there are two ukyo, but I am the worker. The prin- 
ciple is that the family supporter's wants are first 
to be considered, — though in other matters he does 
not rank first. For instance, the place of honour 
when sitting together is always by age and parentage. 
I then take the fourth place, and wife the fifth. And 
the old man is always then served the first. 

During the repast there is a sort of understanding 
that the rest of the family and the servants are not 
to be disturbed without necessity. There is no rule; 
but the custom I respect. So I never go into that 
part of the house unnecessarily till they are finished. 
There is also some etiquette about favourite places, 
— which is strictly observed. 

3 p. M. 4. — If very hot, everybody sleeps, ^- the 
servants sleeping by turns. If cool and pleasant, 
all work. The women make clothes. The men do all 
kinds of little things in the garden and elsewhere. 
Children come to play. The Asahi Shimbun arrives. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 181 

6 P. M. — Bath hour. 

6.30-7.30. — Supper. 

8 p. M. — Everybody squats round the haho- 
hibachi to hear the Asahi Shimbun read, or to tell 
stories. Sometimes the paper does not come, — 
then curious games are played, in which the girls 
join. The mother sews at intervals. One game is 
very original. A piece of string is tied in a large loop, 
and a number of little loops and ends are made with 
short pieces of string. Then the large loop is spread 
on a velvet zabaton, so as to form the outline of the 
face of Otafuku. Blindfolded, then, the players 
must put the other loose ends and bits of string 
inside the circle, so as to make the rest of the face. 
But this is hard to do, and every mistake produces 
extraordinary comicalities. But if the night is very 
fine, we sometimes go out — always taking turns so 
that the girls get their share of the outing. Some- 
times the theatre is the attraction. Sometimes there 
are guests. I think the greatest joy, though, is the 
discovery and purchase of odd or pretty things in 
some lamp-lit shop at night. It is brought home in 
great triumph, and all sit round it in a circle to ad- 
mire. My own evening, however, is generally passed 
in writing. If guests come for me, the rest of the 
family remains invisible till they go away, — except 
wife, — that is, if the guests are important. Then 
she sees to their comfort. Ordinary guests are served 
only by the girls. 

As evening wanes, the turn of the Kami-sama 
comes. During the day, they received their usual 
offerings; but it is at night the special prayers are 



182 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

made. The little lamps are lighted; and each of the 
family in turn, except myself, say the prayers and 
pay reverence. These prayers are always said 
standing, but those to the hotoke are said kneeling. 
Some of the prayers are said for me. I was never 
asked to pray but once — when there was grief in 
the house; and then I prayed to the Gods, repeating 
the Japanese words one by one as they were told to 
me. The little lamps of the Kami are left to burn 
themselves out. 

All wait for me to give the signal of bed-time, — 
unless I should become so absorbed in writing as to 
forget the hour. Then I am asked if I am not work- 
ing too hard. The girls spread the futons in the vari- 
ous rooms; and the hibachi are replenished, so that 
we — i. e., I and the men only — may smoke during 
the night if we wish. Then the girls prostrate them- 
selves with an o-yasumi! and all becomes quiet. 

Sometimes I read till I fall asleep. Sometimes I 
keep on writing — with a pencil in bed — but always, 
according to ancient custom, the little wife asks 
'pardon for being the first to go to sleep. I once tried to 
stop the habit — thinking it too humble. But after 
all it is pretty, — and is so set into the soul that it 
could not be stopped. And this is an ordinary day in 
outline. Then we sleep. 

Faithfully ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Saturday, October 13. 

P. S. There is a frightful storm — so that I would 
not ask anybody to go to the mail; and I have 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 183 

pulled open the envelope of last night's letter to add 
a line or two. 

I am working out an essay — a philosophical 
essay on *' Jiujutsu," promised to the Boston folks 
by December. Could you give me any of your own 
thoughts about the reaction against foreign influ- 
ence, and its future possibilities. Of course I want 
the pessimistic view (from the Western side), — viz., 
that the reaction belongs to the deepest instincts 
of the race, and will never pass. I am taking this 
side. I don't mean to say I am sure of my posi- 
tion. Who but the Gods can be sure of anything. 
But I am taking what I believe the most probable 
view. What I would especially like are sample-facts 
of a startling kind — something that will whiz 
through the imagination like a splendid mad wasp. 
All reactions ought to be summed up if I can do it 
— moral, educational, religious, commercial. I don't 
mean to ask you to sit down when you don't feel 
like it to write me, but to dash off a few ideas on 
paper for me when you do have time and inclination. 
Even a word may stir up a universe of fancies: I 
want hints at least. You are in the nerve-centre, and 
I am only at a very small remote ganglion — so to 
speak. 

Earthquakes increase in frequency. The boy 
Tortorie being carried across the street the other 
day might have caused the last one. I am more and 
more inclined to think him a Bosatsu. He has been 
taught to hand me letters and papers, — and though 
only six months old he does it always with a smile, 
(not taught at all, the smile, — must be ancestral 



184 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

habit). Then he watches me open them. I am quite 
afraid of him, and sure that he knows more than I. 
To cause him fear is utterly impossible; nor have 
any experiments suflSced to make him exhibit grief 
or wrath. It is all very well to say this means only 
perfect health; it means the influence of faith or 
character for one thousand years, at least. 

October 11, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Won't you think me 
dull.f^ Well, I have malaria, — it is nearly over, but 
it always stupefies me, — so that I can't write well. I 
trust the autumn weather is dealing gently with you. 

We had great games here yesterday in com- 
memoration of our foundation. I liked the games 
in Izumo better, because of the beautiful old loyal 
spirit they showed, love of the Emperor, love of 
country. But these were interesting, too. What 
especially impressed me was the military song 
chanted by two hundred young men, all keeping 
time with their feet and bringing out the last syl- 
lable of each line with a report of emphasis like a 
crash of musketry. I thought I saw for an instant 
a flash of Japanese soul, — the old military spirit. 
Oh! what pains should be taken to preserve it! — 
and yet those in power do so little to cultivate it. I 
could really cry with vexation when I think of the 
indifference, — the ignorant, blind indifference of 
the Educational Powers to nourish the old love of 
country and love of the Emperor. The fencing was 
rather savage, but quite skilful. I am convinced, 
however, that the French school founded by the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 185 

terrible mulatto, Jean Louis, is the only one that will 
survive. Point will always win against edge. I be- 
lieve our soldiers are drilled in the French style. 

There was an idiot of a missionary — a simpering 
gawk — who wanted to show his Western superior- 
ity; and I knew by one look at the man that he was 
going to make an ass of himself. He did. He tried to 
throw the hammer and was beaten most absurdly 
by a boy of sixteen, and he tried to run a race, and 
was beaten badly by a man with much shorter legs. 
A foreigner is a fool to contend when not invited. If 
he is a good man, and wins, — it is no credit to him, 
as he is usually a giant compared with the con- 
testants; and if he is beaten, the exultation shown 
at his defeat seems to say, *'You have disgraced 
your nationality." I fancy the sly mockery of yes- 
terday, however, was especially due to the man's 
being a missionary. Sneers of "senkyoshi!" were 
pretty audible in all directions. 

I finished my "Stone Buddha" and sent it away. 
Whether it is good or bad, I can't even surmise. I 
am working now on a philosophical study of 
"Jiujutsu." 

Every day has its revelations. What seem to be 
mountains turn out to be only clouds; the horizon 
forever recedes. Of Japan, I would say with Kip- 
ling's pilot: "And if any man comes to you, and says 
'I know the Javva currents, don't you listen to 
him; for those currents is never yet known to 
mortal man ! ' ''j 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



186 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

October 31, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — It was very pleasant to 
hear you smacking aesthetic lips over the splendid 
savour of Gautier; — you can feel now how apt 
Baudelaire's epithet appHed to him, — "Le parfait 
magicien des lettres francaises." Then you ex- 
pressed him exactly by saying *' the thought is the 
word." As a mere pure artist I suppose, in spite of 
all the carping there has been about his work, he has 
not any equal in all European verse. We exact 
thinking now, as well as art, — and perhaps it is 
well, since the mere mechanical mastery of verse is 
common to a whole world of poetasters. But there 
is really an art in Gautier that lifts every word into 
the world of thinking, and that makes one almost 
ready to believe in a new Gnosticism, — that words 
are Beings which reveal their souls only to the elect. 

You ask if I have any more "delightful surprises." 
Really I don't know. I studied the Romantic School 
pretty well ; and perhaps if you have not paid much 
attention to it, I might be able to make suggestions 
you would like. But, of course, there is only one 
Gautier. I should like to know how you will feel 
about his prose, — "Arria Marcella," "Une Nuit de 
Cleopatre," "Le Roi Candaule," the delicious 
"Morte Amoureuse," "Avatar," etc. If you like 
him, perhaps you would like De Nerval. Gerard de 
Nerval's "Voyage en Orient" (two volumes. Levy, 
f.3.50) seems to me the most wonderful thing of 
the kind ever done. You know he went to Africa, 
married a Mussulman wife, who naturally hated 
him (because he was mad) and ran away from him. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 187 

He wrote the marvellous "Legend of Solomon" and 
"Queen Balkis " for that history, — the work which 
inspired Meyerbeer. It would have been put upon 
the operatic stage, but the conception proved like 
one of John Martin's pictures, — too supernatural 
in depth and breadth for any stage. He translated 
"Faust " very beautifully. Besides the voyage you 
might like his "Filles de Feu," beautiful, sober, sad, 
ghostly sketches, betraying the incipient madness 
that was at last to drive him to suicide. Dore, I 
think, made a picture of that suicide; but the police 
broke up the lithograph stone and suppressed the 
work. Anything of De Nerval's would please you. 
There is a marvellous mediaeval story by him, — 
"La Main de Gloire," — worth anything in the nar- 
rative part of Hugo's "Notre Dame." But I can- 
not now remember what book it was in. 

Should you be able to bear the fiendish and mon- 
strous mixed with rare queer art, you would be 
greatly impressed by two volumes of Baudelaire, — 
"Les Fleurs du Mai," and "Petits Poemes en 
Prose." The former work placed Baudelaire third 
among the Romantic poets, — first, Hugo; second, 
Gautier. I can't say I was much impressed by 
Leconte de Lisle; — nor by any others of the swarm 
of Romantic poets. 

Of course you have read " Madame Bovary." But 
perhaps you have not read Flaubert's "Tentation 
de Saint Antoine," "Les Trois Contes," "Bouvard 
et Pecuchet," "Salammbo," — four books each of 
which would seem to have been written by a totally 
different person. Flaubert represents the extra va- 



188 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

gance of the Romantic laboriousness of art, — the 
exaggerations that preceded the Reahstic reaction. 
But he is very great; and not tourmentS to the extent 
of the brothers Goncourt. Since Swift, I think no 
such satire ever was written on human nature as 
*'Bouvard et Pecuchet." But don't try to read 
*'L'education sentimentale " if you have not already 
done so; in spite of its title it was a shocking failure 
in all respects. Flaubert was a victim of epilepsy; 
his affliction ruined some of his best efforts. 

The perfection of vital Romantic prose, however, 
seems to me to have been first reached by Loti. 
Here we may disagree. But let me remind you that 
you had the misfortune to read the worst works of 
Loti first, which is a misfortune in the case of any 
author. Perhaps if you would read his "Roman 
d'un Spahi," "Mariage de Loti," and "Fleurs 
D'Ennui," you would feel as I do. Loti's work is 
represented by a curve — 

"Roman d'un Spahi" 
" Mariage de Loti " " Fleurs d'Ennui " 

"Aziyade" Five works, each 

weaker than 
the last. 

I really think the prose of those three exotic books 
ought to charm you even more than the poetry of 
Gautier, and in an equally subtle way. 

It is no harm to ask you if you have read the 
"Contes Drolatiques" of Balzac, either in the 
quaint but easy French or in the excellent EngHsh 
"Droll Stories" (by Chatto & Windus) with Dore's 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 180 

four hundred and twenty-five marvellous illustra- 
tions. The book is cheap; but it ought not to be read 
without the illustrations. Comparing the French 
with the English version, I found that, although the 
translation is wonderful, many Rabelaisian expres- 
sions have been toned down. But I notice that 
the book is having a great influence even upon the 
higher criticism. I see references to it constantly. 
Of course it is more daring than Gautier's " Made- 
moiselle de Maupin." But " de Maupin " is only an 
artist's dream; the personages of the " Contes Drola- 
tiques " are all alive. And the stories are not all droll; 
there are some which are in the highest degree 
pathetic. Even the drollness is terrible: it was the 
humour lighted by the fires of the stake, or shadowed 
by the gibbet of Montfaucon. Of all the wonderful 
things in that book, perhaps the most wonderful is 
the story of *'Le Succube." The Parisian publisher 
is Garnier Freres. 

Well, I won't tire you with any more literary chit- 
chat to-day. Let me say your letter about the Reac- 
tionary Movement completely revolutionized my 
work, — caused me to remodel it completely. As I 
told you, even a suggestion may work wonders for 
me. What I wanted was your point of view, and 
having got it, I reasoned "why".?^ The answer to 
the "why " settled the dilemma I was in. 

Two points in the letter occur to me to speak of. 
It may be true as you say that this tone of the 
nation is Jingo; but you did not quite understand 
the feeling of your humble servant. It was the 
contrast between the artificial character of loyal 



190 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

expression as I see it here, and the sincere heart- 
rooted character of loyalty in Izunio that impressed 
me. Now I think this is partly due to the insincere 
and artificial character of the teaching of the na- 
tional feeling. In Izumo it was the real old-fash- 
ioned soul-thing; here it is done, with a cynical 
smile in the sleeve. 

The other point was about the missionary pro- 
perty. Really I can't see that the Japanese are wrong 
at all. First, the property, being acquired in contra- 
vention of law, and by fraudulent evasion of that law, 
might quite justly be confiscated. Secondly, as the 
money was given professedly for the Japanese 
Church, and not for the support or convenience of 
foreign missionaries, the native Christians have 
a moral right to demand its cession as a test of the 
sincerity of foreign religion. Personally, of course, 
I think the missionaries ought to be put on a small 
ship, and the ship scuttled at a reasonable distance 
of one thousand miles from shore. 

You said a very nice thing about Mason in one of 
your letters, that he was "always sane." I can't pre- 
tend to be always sane. Indeed I may confess I have 
been practically insane for a great part of my exist- 
ence. You will therefore not be surprised to hear 
me say that I wonder how you can read the Yoko- 
hama papers without going mad. The Herald you 
sent me spoiled two meals for me. The extracts were 
all right, but the comments. I never open the Mail 
any more; I am afraid to. It only spoils my temper 
and my work. So I envy you. You can look down 
upon all this, as you say, "with amusement." I can- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 191 

not even think of it without feehng just as you 
would feel to see some cowardly or base action very 
close to you. You see the race struggle much more 
philosophically. Doubtless it is the best way. I feel, 
too, the absurdity of any struggle against eternal 
laws. But, nevertheless, those few insane ones who 
believe themselves able to fight the Infinite, do 
accomplish something; they effect some delays in 
disintegration, and preserve in their protests the 
memory of something beautiful that might other- 
wise be lost. 

Which reminds me of the absurd episode at the 
close of your last letter, the episode of the drunken 
sailors. It set me to thinking what is the value of 
obscene vulgarity in evolutional processes. And I 
came to the conclusion that the coarseness and 
roughness and brutality which most shock us 
abroad, have their indirect value as social checks, — 
brakes. They are a perpetual mock and menace to 
sentimentality, and prevent certain exaggerations. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Oh! I must add the following from a recent com- 
position. *' Autumn has becomed. It is the season 
when the sound of the rivers sink us into deep asso- 
ciation. And the mountains are lonely, having lost 
their addresses." (He meant their beauty.) 

Dear Chamberlain, — The more I read Kip- 
ling's "Rhyme of the Three Sealers," the more 
I am astonished at the immense power of the thing. 



192 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

It gains with every reading. And how little of the 
world's modern fiction and poetry does this! It is 
the sign of true genius, — the perfect imagination 
that reaches its goal by unknown methods. There 
is, indeed, the trouble you spoke of long ago, — 
that it is written in a dialect, so to speak, which 
may change rapidly. Still, I doubt if our rough 
speech changes much more rapidly than does our 
refined tongue. The English of the eighteenth cen- 
tury is not the English of to-day, though we under- 
stand and admire it. Kipling must last, anyhow, 
a hundred years, — that will make his best work 
classic. 

But what are "sheer strakes," "chocks," "bends 
and butts," "cleats," and "topping-lifts"? You will 
confess that, though mysterious to the landlubber, 
there is a blocky, bumping, raking force, even in the 
sound of them that tells. Yet again, what — oh what 
is a holluschickie ? Is it a kite.^* — a pi-yoro-yoro.^^ 
Weird and funny at once — is n't it.'' 

And we'll go up to the wrath of God as the holluschickie goes. 
But he'll lie down on the killing-grounds where the holluschickie go. 

But it seems to me that, leaving the descriptive art 
of the thing out of the question as above all praise, 
Kipling reaches his supreme art in the two simple 
lines, — 

And west you'll turn and south again, beyond the sea-fog's rim. 
And tell the Yoshiwara girls to burn a stick for him. . . . 

It is, of course, the very first time that any Western 
writer ever succeeded in making infinite poetry with 
that much befouled word ; — there is more art in 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 193 

that one line than in all "Madame Chrysantheme. " 
But that is n't the wonder alone: the wonder is, that 
with that simplest touch, a whole world of pathos, 

— the whole romance and better nature of the rough 
sailor appears, — his rude tenderness, — his super- 
stition, — his isolation, — his vague empiric educa- 
tion by travel, teaching him that one faith may be 
good as another, — his consciousness of no hope from 
his own by the breaking of every law, human and di- 
vine, — and fifty other things ! That is sheer magic. 
One word more would have spoiled the effect. One 
word less would have rendered it impossible. And 
no genius — not Victor Hugo — could even have 
changed a word without ruining the perfect balance 
of the whole infinitely pathetic utterance, — the 
moral of it, — the poetry of it, — "the pity of it." 

I won't try to praise the rest of the astonishing 
study, — the sudden change of feeling from anger to 
kindness, — the change of the modern man, wicked 
only for a reason, for a profit, — good underneath 
all. But one could write a book on the thing. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I think your version of 
the origin and necessity of the rhyme alternation — 
as expressed in the treat just received from you 

— must be correct. What I ventured on was only 
a theory as to the period of the adoption of certain 
rules to govern the use thereof, — and as to a pos- 
sibly romantic origin. We may both be right: cer- 
tainly you must be. As for me, I find this in Saints- 



194 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

bury, — regarding the Provencal causo: "Here the 
rhymes were interlaced, and the alternation of mas- 
culine and feminine by degrees observed.'' (End of 
11th and beginning of 12th — lasting to 13th cen- 
tury (1st Period.) Best work (2nd Period) of the 
thirteenth century, — referred to in the above 
lines.) Saintsbury thinks that of Provencal poetry 
only the lyrical form affected Northern French as a 
literary influence. But he also thinks the Northern 
lyrical work published in Bartsch's " Romanzen und 
Pastourellen " (Leipsic, 1870) was indigenous. The 
question you bring up is not touched by him — 
probably never occurred to him. By the way, 
since you tell me you have not paid much attention 
to Provencal, I am sure the early work would delight 
you; and I am almost sure the felibres would charm 
you. I have not studied the tongue itself, — only 
made out beauties cited in works on the trouba- 
dours, etc. But I would like to coax you to experi- 
ment with the modern Provencal, in the shape of 
Mistral's " Mireille." Leroux (?) has published a de- 
licious edition of it at four or five francs, I think, 
with the Provencal text on the left page, and a par- 
allel prose modern French translation on the other. 
It is beautiful, I think: I loved it. Wish I had a copy 
to send you. But I was beaten out of my library — 
nine hundred and fifty volumes about — by a smart 
Yankee doctor in Philadelphia. Vanity and vexa- 
tion of spirit! I believe the modern Provencal is a 
splendid introduction to the elder form — so they 
say. Some of my New Orleans friends used to speak 
it well. It sounded like invertebrate Spanish mixed 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 195 

with Italian. I have no copy of S. Prudhomme's 
poem, or I would be so glad to send it you. I never 
had his complete works, — nor even the delightful 
Parnasse collections: I used only to pick up bits and 
scraps of the Parnassien school in the French 
reviews and in the Figaro. But were I sure of things 
I would spend one thousand yen to-morrow for 
French books. Prospects are so uncertain, however, 
that I must abandon literary luxuries. I study now 
only "thinking books" — la raison sans melange? 
And I am almost ashamed to confess one base in- 
dulgence in luxury of recent date — a complete 
set of Goethe. Of course it 's solid thinking in a cer- 
tain sense, — but not the kind of thing one should 
buy unless able to purchase lots of pure literature. 
Clifford, Stevens, Bain, Huxley, Galton, — those 
are the men I ought to read. 

I wrote an extravagant note to you yesterday 
about Kipling's last. But it really expressed my 
conviction and feeling. The thing is wonderful, and 
haunts me asleep and awake. 

What you say about the hope for a nation willing 
to sacrifice life for an idea is certainly the grand 
truth — that which stills the angriest hopelessness 
as oil smoothes the waves. There is, indeed, that 
hope, — if the detestable officialism can be choked 
to death in another twenty -five years. The friend 
who has been lifting corners of the veil for me, 
showed me to-day the reports of the old Sapporo 
college under American management. 

Well, that was a school. But what is it now.'' And 
what are the middle schools changing into.^ Is it 



196 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

possible there may come at last a general failure 
of the whole system — as in Korea. The very zeal of 
the beginning gives one that fear. 

Faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 

P. S. I will copy that Kumamoto Rojo, and send 
the copy whenever you wish — preferring with your 
permission to preserve the original MS. 

It has occurred to me that you might have been 
thinking of the Daikokumai Ballads, when you sug- 
gested a paper for the Asiatic Society. I did not 
finish working at them, — but will later on. Should 
you wish them, tell me. The only trouble is, they 
won't be of any value as literal translations — which 
is what the Society should certainly have, — 
should n't it? I will write later about other things. 

My old Japanese grandfather does not hear well, 
and is not often talkative. But he sometimes tells 
queer tales of the past. The appearance of an Eng- 
lish man-of-war off Osaka in his youth was the sub- 
ject of his last narrative. The idea about for- 
eigners in those days was apparently superhuman, 
for the servants of the samurai nearly all ran away 
from them, when ordered to the beach. If I could 
write the old man's exact words, you would enjoy 
his narrative. It struck me, while I was hearing the 
interpretation, that if the old men still living could 
be induced to write down all their reminiscences, 
out of the mass extraordinary interest could be 
extracted. t^ 

^^^'■' L. H. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 197 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your kind letter from 
Miyanoshita has just come. Indeed, I have no 
sensitiveness about criticism, — even upon my own 
work; — I had feared having offended in a purely 
conventional matter only. I like a very savage 
criticism on a book next to a very sympathetic one. 
And you — who have the most preeminent imperial 
right to criticize any critic! — never could I dream 
of protesting against your most perfect frankness of 
like or dislike to my hobbies. No: indeed! When 
you agree, of course I feel glad ; and when you don't 
I sometimes feel disappointed — at not having been 
able to give pleasure: that is all. 

What is more, I know you are right from one 
point of view about Gautier. The Romantic move- 
ment, which he really headed, was a protest against 
all conventions, — moral and otherwise, — in the 
name and for the sake of beauty alone. This pagan 
principle is recognized still by schools of art and 
literature — without extravagance, of course — and 
all general sweeping extremes entail terrible errors. 
Mallock's criticisms are often, I think, abominable; 
but he told the plain truth when he said that Gau- 
tier (in "Mdlle. de Maupin") had sung the praises 
not only of natural but of unnatural lust. Other 
Romantists did nearly as ill. They all sowed a crop 
of dragon's teeth. Preaching without qualification 
the gospel of beauty — that beauty is truth — pro- 
voked the horrible modern answer of Zolaism: 
"Then truth must be beauty!" 

It is not the highest art, of course, this worship 
of beauty. We cannot to-day touch the skirts of 



198 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Greek art, — yet we feel the realized ideal that one 
marvellous race, and only one, had a divine glimpse 
of, is not the highest possible. The highest must be 
aspirational, — like music, — aspirational with all 
its spirings of utterance piercing into the Future. 
But I think that every school contributes some 
tone, some colour — else unobtainable — to that 
mighty future scale of emotional harmonies of 
which the depths and the heights are still invisible 
to us — just as the possibilities of colour are still but 
faintly guessed at by us. Sense alone — pure or 
impure love of mere beauty and light and sweet- 
ness — cannot give the highest tones, — nor the 
deepest; but they help to do something for the evo- 
lution of the middle lines, which the loftier and the 
deeper powers cannot make — yet without which 
they would remain but dimly visible. 

For this reason I imagine we are not wrong to 
praise and admire even the art of Gautier and of the 
senses. Some sensualism is a good thing for human 
nature. It softens. Nowllikethat" ArriaMarcella," 
— that reverie which expresses the whole regret of 
the nineteenth century for the dead Gods and the 
dead paganism, — which re-creates the past for a 
night, and lives forever after haunted by the un- 
speakable melancholy of the broken dream. Is it 
not truth — the longing of every lover of the antique 
beauty — the dreams of every passionate student 
in the spring of thinking life? We have all had it. 
Surely never to have had it would leave life more 
colourless and less sensitive than it ought to be. 

About the impossibility of a courtesan ever be- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 199 

ing a heroine, I am not quite sure. Two great nov- 
els — one by Wilkie Collins and one by Charles 
Reade — seem to hint that, even in that society 
where the courtesan is degraded as in no other epoch 
or century, a courtesan may come very near to 
being a heroine. But the condition varies much with 
country and customs. However, let us only touch 
the higher literature. I think at once of three books 
I would not like to deny supreme merit to, — the 
*'Manon Lescaut" of Prevost, still a perfect classic 
after one hundred and sixty years' test; — the 
"Rolla" of Alfred de Musset; — and the powerful 
*' Carmen" of Prosper Merimee, which inspired so 
noble an opera — an opera that still haunts me with 
its Havanese airs, its tantalizing of tropical passion, 
its merciless lesson of the fall of those who love III. 
Now those three are courtesans. It is true they are 
— in two cases — curses and terrors ; but that 
great novels may be written about them strikes me 
as quite possible. But, oh ! tchat would you think of 
Balzac's "La Belle Imperia''.^^ Certainly you would 
judge it more harshly than Froude has done " Le Pere 
Goriot." And both you and Froude are right — - 
though I don't think wholly right. The spiritual 
sense in both — the Northern Gothic aspirational 
sense — is too deeply offended by the unspiritual 
element of such tales to acknowledge they can have 
any charm for a higher mind. 

You ask me to recommend some books I like, and 
I may venture to try something in the larger and 
stronger way that I imagine you might like. But I 
am not sure. (I have been "out of the run" for five 



200 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

years; — so I have missed much.) But I would like 
you to try what I believe to be the most powerful 
emotional novel of modern times (the French ver- 
sion) — "Crime et Chatiment" of Dostoievsky, if 
you have not already read it. It is a crucifying thing 
to read, but it goes down to the deepest fibres in a 
man's heart. This is a greater book even than Tol- 
stoi's "Cossacks." I like the Russian writers, very, 
very, very much. I think Tourgueneff's "Virgin 
Soil" greater than Victor Hugo's "Miserables." I 
think Gogol cleverer than our cleverest society 
novel writers. And I like the little stories these men 
write, — the delightful little stories of Tourgueneff, 
— the "Nouvelles Russes," etc. There is so much 
in little stories! You might not like "A Lear of the 
Steppe," etc., but you would like, I think, "Les 
Reliques Vivantes," etc. (Except Dostoievsky: I 
only want my worst enemy to read some of his short 
stories.) 

Only one living French writer writes tolerably 
sane short stories worthy to compare with those of 
the Russians, — Daudet. Daudet's short stories 
of the Franco-Prussian war struck me as greater 
works of art than even "Le Nabab," "Froment 
Jeune et Risler Aine," etc. They have not the 
comical power of the same class of stories by De 
Maupassant, but they have what De M. never 
possessed — deep human sympathy. 

And I might venture to ask if you have tried 
Bjornson? If you have not, and should attempt 
"Synnove Solbakken," I fancy you would like to 
read everything else he has written. The puzzle of 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 201 

these Norse writers is their enormous force combined 
with childish simpHcity . Take up a volume, and you 
think you are reading a book for babies. All at once 
tremendous passion shows itself, masters you, and 
shakes you into profound respect. Andersen's 
charm, you know, was marked by this same power. 
These Northmen never condescend to look for 
ornamental words, — they have no devices, no 
tricks at all, — nothing but great huge, smooth, 
frank strength. They are my despair ! I cou\d never 
write a page like Bjornson though I studied for a 
century. But I could imitate in English a Florid 
Romantic. Ornamental luxurious work is n't the 
hardest. The hardest is perfect simplicity. 

And I find myself thinking of Taylor's noble 
poem, "Lars," and that made me think of American 
writers. You spoke not very admiringly of Holmes 
one day; — but did you ever read "Elsie Venner".'* 
I fancy you would like it. However, I won't say 
anything more about American writers to-day. 
Ever most sincerely, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. A Japanese Riddle. 

(Do you like riddles? I do — only when I can 
find the answer. I don't like the others much, — 
because they may turn out to be Sphinx-riddles; 
and I am afraid of being devoured.) 

This is from the local newspaper: — 

Young Kyushu farmer goes into a public bath, 
finds the water too hot for his taste, and cries out, 
"This is Jigoku." Grizzled relative in the bath ex- 



202 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

claims to him, "You are an animal! — why hair 
upon your face have you not got? Suppose I was in 
the Penitentiary — I am your relative!" Young 
farmer vainly tries to apologize; — says he had no 
double meaning. Relative proceeds, "You are a 
mushi; you are a child new-born. Give me back 
your wife : she 's my blood ! What right has an insect 
like you — who knows nothing about living — to 
a wife?" Young farmer says, "All right!" Goes 
home, tells his wife all, pets her, and sends her to 
the relative. Two days later goes to the house of 
Jigoku — calls out the returned wife, and whispers 
her to go to another relative's house at once. Wife 
goes. Young farmer then enters house, and kills 
ex-penitentiary relative with the edge of the sword. 
Returns to other relative's house and embraces 
wife. Wife and husband bathe, dress, feast, and 
compose poems!! Then both kill themselves. 

Now all this is very, very puzzling. What public 
opinion under the circumstances could force a man 
to send back his wife for the mere asking? Then why 
the necessity of killing? Why the perfect, joyful 
acquiescence of the wife, and the universal sym- 
pathy with the dead, and the general opinion of the 
murdered party as guilty of murder. What strange 
ethics ! — what strange pride and power of purpose ! 

"And if any man was to come to you and say, 'I 
know them Javva currents,' — don't you listen to 
him ; for those currents is never yet known to mortal 
man," . . . etc. 

L. H. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 203 

November 23, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Many sincere thanks for 
kind letter and the enclosed kind notice of the In- 
troduction. Whether you will like all the book 
equally with what you have seen of it, I cannot say; 
but as H. M. & Co. never publish anything very bad, 
you will not, I think, find your ventured criticism 
untrue. Perfect equality of tone through a book of 
this kind is scarcely possible; — for one page written 
for print, perhaps ten have been suppressed. . . . 

I am sorry I cannot tell you anything satisfac- 
tory about good works of a special kind on modern 
French prosody. Perhaps Saintsbury's history of 
French literature will contain some valuable refer- 
ences — but I do not know to what date he brings 
up his history ; and the existing schools have brought 
in some new ideas. It strikes me that both in prose 
and poetry Gautier is essentially alliterative, as in 
the line, — 

Une grace atroce, — 
La grace du gladiateur. 

And the crispy crunchy sudden thawing into soft- 
ness of the Symphonic, — 

De quel mica de neige vierge, 
De quelle moelle de roseau. 

I am sorry to have praised to you stories you do 
not like — though your beautiful criticism of the 
dramatic element in "Le Roi Candaule" shows you 
were not altogether disgusted. My excuse is that 
besides the fact the "Morte Amoureuse" is regarded 
as Gautier's most remarkable story by critics of the 
highest class, it has been translated by Lang, under 



204 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

the title of "The Dead Leman," and it was thought 
worthy of a sonnet by Swinburne, who is certainly 
a good judge. "Arria Marcella" I like even better; 
but I suppose you will be still more disgusted with 
it. 

I think your idea about a possible limit to Chinese 
emigration and acclimation would be, if fully sup- 
ported by facts, the only powerful argument pos- 
sible against the predictions of Pearson. Unfor- 
tunately, perhaps, the facts seem to be the other 
way. China can send streams out from three of her 
own different zones of climate; and her people pour 
into Siberia as well as into Singapore. I have seen 
Chinamen everywhere in the West Indies. They are 
getting all the small-shop trade into their hands in 
some of the islands. They settle on the Pacific coast 
from Canada to Southern Chili. Panama alone 
proved a deadly climate to them; but the West 
Indian negroes also died there, and faster. 

A suggestion apropos of prosody. Sidney Lanier 
met the diflficulty of vexed questions about metres 
and their names by a curious book that might please 
you — if you do not know it "The Science of 
Verse" (Scribners). He gives all the measures in 
music, and thinks that is the quickest way to teach 
the art of poetry. It is certainly the most natural. 
The only trouble is that the student should know 
music as a preliminary to being taught by such a 
method. 

Many thanks for kind telegram. All well. 
Ever very truly yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 205 

December 3, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... There is a whole 
world of evolutional suggestion in that letter of 
yours, — especially in the passage of it relating to 
the influence of musical development upon lan- 
guage forms. It seems to me to explain a host of rid- 
dles. The other day while labouring to do something 
with the terribly dull narrative of another Japanese 
ballad, I came to a sentence relating the return of a 
mother from the dead, and could not help compar- 
ing it most unfavourably with a similar episode in the 
"Kalevala," which always seemed to me one of 
the most pathetic and beautiful in human literature. 
The Japanese text is dead as a door-nail. But the 
Finnish race is truly musical. So profound the rela- 
tion between music and emotional speech, that I 
suppose, however deeply felt, emotion can never be 
strongly expressed in a tongue which music has not 
largely aided to evolve. It is not simply that the 
words won't cry out, but that even the thought be- 
hind the words never can be fully uttered, but only 
suggested. Are not the daintiest Japanese or Chinese 
poems, after all, suggestive rather than expressive, — 
and for this very reason? — though our own com- 
mon ballads are full of powerful feeling, as well as 
full of music. 

What you call your theory as to the rime riche 
seems to me to rise far above theory, — to supply 
a very adequate explanation. Here, however, I am 
too much of an ignoramus to discuss the matter. I 
read nothing on French philology except Brachet's 
"Historical Grammar," and the wonderful phonetic 



206 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

history of the language prefixed to his Etymological 
French Dictionary (the Macmillan ed. U. S.), — 
explaining a sort of musical, or tonic "Grimm's 
Law" discovered by Helmholtz, — was n't it? But 
I could not master all that so as to utilize it seriously : 
indeed I never tried. I can speak of philological 
matters only from the general standpoint of the 
Synthetic Philosophy. According to that, in spite of 
the effort to preserve it, the rhyme of the final sylla- 
ble would seem doomed beyond hope, — especially, 
according to the opinion of the German philologist 
you cite, that the tendency is now to withdraw the 
accent further back. 

Shelley and Byron both use the "rich rhymes," as 
you call them, in some of their comic and satiric 
work, — but not, I think, in their finer verse; and 
none, perhaps, could be found in Tennyson, Ros- 
setti, or the best singers. The word "rich" strikes 
me as a euphemism, — unless it had the sense of 
cloying, — of too many raisins in the pudding. I 
cannot quite understand why what is certainly bad 
in English, should seem not bad in French. 

With the reading of your letter there has come to 
me the idea that some of the old French measures 
might have been evolved in a way that would 
explain the order of the alternation of the feminine 
and masculine rhymes. The feminine, in quatrains, 
belongs always to the preponderating line, — 
does n't it? Thinking of those queer mediaeval stu- 
dent-songs, of which the first line was — say Latin, 
the second French, the third English, the fourth 
Spanish, etc., — it occurred to me that the fusion of 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 207 

a Northern with a Latin tongue would certainly 
result in popular efforts to shape new metres — 
metres which might represent a sort of compromise 
between the ancient and the newer forms. The pre- 
dominant language would give the predominant 
quality, after the fusion, to any measure of this 
kind. Our own ballad measures appeared only after 
the conquest. Again there is this possibility — per- 
haps (?) — that in early measures of four there 
would have been only two rhymes — as in our own 
early ballads, the masculine rhymes not being at 
first used at all. In our old ballads the second and 
fourth lines only rhyme, — in ninety-nine cases, 
perhaps. But the mere weakening of the tonic ac- 
cent you speak of would also be a reason, the creat- 
ive effort following the direction of least resistance 
— basing its work on the feminine rhymes. How- 
ever, this is all the guess-work of a man so ignorant 
about philology that it may be impertinent for him 
to guess at all. I have an idea that the historical 
prosody of French is rather fully treated, in a very 
pleasing way, in the great modern works on the 
poetry of the troubadours and trouveres, and on 
the Hterature of old Provence. I say "idea" because 
I read many extracts from these books, at a time 
when I was trying to study Mistral and the modern 
Provengal singers. I cannot (horrible to say!) re- 
member a single name. But probably nothing of 
solid value produced in France could have escaped 
the omnivorous German philologues. 

Wife is well, and running about as if nothing 
serious had happened.' The boy is everything that 



208 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

I could wish — except one thing. After all, he is 
going to be fair-haired and fair-eyed, and not much 
like a Japanese. Something of the Hearn family not 
in Lafcadio Hearn at all is developing very strongly 
in him. I've mapped out all his little future. Ma- 
son's advice is right — I think, confirms my own 
resolve. This little being needs my whole life, time, 
strength, care — everything I can give before going 
to the hakaba; — I shall barely be able to freight and 
supply the ship for its voyage. No more life-ships 
shall be launched! — I am rather proud, however, of 
this one, and not much afraid of the future therefor. 
I fear it will tax patience to read such a long 
epistle, — but your last was so brimful of sugges- 
tions that a brief reply was out of the question. 
Ever, with grateful regards. 
Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

December 13, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — You are beautifully right 
about Hugo in his nobler moods. He is simple, — 
but carries in his simplicity what Clifford calls 
*' cosmic emotion." 

About the accents, — well, I never studied the 
question ; but is it really the accent that makes the 
difference.^ I did not think it was. "Nearest" and 
*' dearest" and "clearest" seem right to me simply 
because the sound suffices to fix their meaning most 
clearly. Not so exactly with "near" and "veneer;" 
— there the second part of the dissyllable is a per- 
fect repetition in sound of the monosyllabic word. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 209 

It only struck me about this way: — When the 
termination of any polysyllable contains the exact 
sound of another word with which it is made to 
rhyme, the rhyme is unlawful — becomes a sort of 
bastard pun. (Is n't this almost right?) And no 
two words of different meaning but similar sound 
can be used as rhymes — such as "sewn" and 
*' sown " — or " tern " and *' turn " — for like reason. 
It seems to me the question is rather of meaning 
than of accent, — that the accent only is explana- 
tory. In "nearest" and "dearest" — the suppres- 
sion of the initial consonant leaves no intelligible 
remainder; — ^'earest" having no meaning. But in 
such unlawful rhymes as "polite" and "delight," 
the suppression of the only differently sounding parts 
of the word leaves remainders with not only the same 
sound, but the same possible meaning — to the ear. 
Oh dear! I am sorry (for myself only) that you 
already have the book I wanted to give you. The 
engravings are delightful — are they not? Then you 
probably know whether the work contains anything 
that I could build upon. I have reached that stage 
at which the collector finds his legends grouping 
themselves — each new fact only reechoing an idea 
already received several times. This is sterilizing to 
fancy. I am always in the state of hope for a new 
sensation, but seldom get it. The little book of 
Kwannon I have, — full of queer little pictures. I 
would like to get some good things out of the Kom- 
pira book, however; for I hope to make something 
of the trip in a literary way. In a financial way, I 
never expect to make anything. No publisher ever 



210 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

paid me anything except under threat of a lawsuit, 
and then as Httle as possible. The pay of the maga- 
zines is about twenty dollars a page; the Atlantic 
paying less than half that; — but other magazines 
than the Atlantic spoil a man's work, caricature it 
with beastly illustrations, and take only what will 
feed the popular man. You know the popular man 
wants nothing fine. On the contrary, the Atlan- 
tic goes in only for fine work; but they want it too 
fine. They are forcing me into philosophical writ- 
ing. Perhaps it is the best thing possible for me at 
the present — because I can obtain no help for any 
lighter kind of work, and can get no material ; but it 
condemns a man to a very restricted audience. In 
order to read such stuff at all, the audience must 
have become well-crammed with book-lore of a spe- 
cial character. 

Perhaps you would like Sully Prudhomme He 
has written exquisite things — some. And perhaps 
you would like bits of Louis Bouilhet. I made a 
translation of S. P.'s "Les Yeux;" but I fear it is 
a desecration. Of Bouilhet, I venture a version, — 
I can't give you the original, as I found it only in 
Maxime du Camp's "Souvenirs," which I no longer 
possess. Please don't think of the faults in my 
verse : it is only the strangely weird idea of the poem 
that I would call your attention to : — 

THE MUMMY 

Startled, — as by some far faint din 
Of azure-lighted worlds, — from sleep, 

The Mummy, trembling, wakes within 
The hypogeum's blackest deep, — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 211 

And murmurs low, with slow sad voice: 

"Oh! to be dead and still endure! — 
Well may the quivering flesh rejoice 

That feels the Vulture's gripe impure! 

"Seeking to enter this Night of death, 

Each element knocks at my granite door: — 
"'We are Air and Fire and Earth, — the breath 
Of Winds, — the Spirits of Sea and Shore. 

"'Into the azure — out of the gloom 

Rise! — let thine atoms in light disperse! 
Mix with the date-palm's emerald plume! 
Scatter thyself through the universe! 

"' We shall waft thee far over waste and wold; — 
Thou shalt be lulled to joyous sleep 
By leaves that whisper in light of gold, — 
By murmur of fountains cool and deep! 

" ' Rise ! — perchance from thy dungeon dark 
Infinite Nature may wish to gain 
For the God-like Sun another spark, — 
Another drop for the diamond rain!' 

"Woe! Mine are death's eternal bands! . . . 
I feel Them come, as I lie alone, — 
The Centuries, heavy as drifted sands 
Heaping above my bed of stone. 

"O be accursed, ye impious race! — 

Caging the creature that seeks to soar. 
Preserving agony's weird grimace 
In hideous mockery — evermore!" 

Do you know, — whenever I get very despondent, 
I feel just like Louis Bouilhet's mummy; — I think 
of the far azure-lighted worlds, and I feel the years, 
like sand -drifts, heaping all round the soul of me. 
Ever very faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



«12 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

December 14, 1893. 

Dear Chamberlain, — What you said in your 
last letter about the effect of darkness upon you in 
childhood, haunted me : I thought I would revert to 
it another time. And now that about one hundred 
compositions have been corrected, I can find a 
chance to chat about it. 

You specified nothing: I understand the feeling 
itself was vague, — like many other feelings of 
childhood of which the indefiniteness itself is a fear, 
— a sort of mysterious depression of which you 
could not yourself have told the cause. (This I also 
remember, — but it became coupled with other 
unpleasant sensations of which I shall speak pre- 
sently.) It seems to me these feelings of earliest 
childhood — so intense and yet so vague — are the 
weirdest in all human experience, and that for the 
best of reasons: they are really ghostly. Not of our 
own experience are these ; — they of the dead — of 
the vanished generations behind us ; — and I am not 
sure but that our pleasures are equally weird at that 
age. I remember crying loudly at an air played upon 
the piano, — in the midst of a fashionable gather- 
ing; — and I remember people (long buried) whose 
names I have quite forgotten, making their voices 
and faces kind, and trying to coax me to tell what 
was the matter. Naturally I could not tell; — I can 
only vaguely guess now ; I know the emotions stirred 
within my child-heart were not of me — but of 
other lives. But then I had to give a reason: so I 
lied. I said I was thinking of my uncle who was dead 
(though I never really cared for him at all). Then 



I 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 213 

I got petting, and cake, and wondered, young as I 
was, how I had been able to deceive. 

Have you not noticed how utterly the psycholog- 
ists have failed to explain the Fear that comes in 
dreams? The suspension of will-power is given as an 
explanation; but that will not do, — because there 
is frequently loss of will-power in dreams unaccom- 
panied by the real fear of nightmare. The real fear 
of nightmare is greater than any fear possible to 
experience in waking moments; it is the highest 
possible form of mental suffering; it is so powerful 
that were it to last more than a few instants it would 
cause death ; and it is so intimately linked to feelings 
of which we know nothing in waking hours — feel- 
ings not belonging to life at all — that we cannot 
describe it. It is certainly well that we cannot. 
Now I have long fancied that this form of fear also 
is explainable only by the inheritance of ancestral 
memories, — not any one painful experience, but 
the multitudinous fears of a totally unknown past, 
which the Gods have otherwise mercifully enabled 
us to forget. The memories themselves are indeed 
gone, — only the sensations of them remain, stir 
into life at vague moments of sleep, and especially in 
the sleep of sickness, when the experiences of real 
life grow faintest in recollection. 

Well, when I was a child, bad dreams took for me 
real form and visibility. In my waking hours / saw 
them. They walked about noiselessly and made hid- 
eous faces at me. Unhappily I had no mother then 
— only an old grandaunt who never had children of 
her own, and who hated superstition. If I cried for 



214 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

fear in the dark, I only got whipped for it; but the 
fear of ghosts was greater than the fear of whip- 
pings — because I could see the ghosts. The old lady 
did not believe me; but the servants did, and used to 
come and comfort me by stealth. As soon as I was 
old enough to be sent to a child-school, I was hap- 
pier, — because though badly treated there, I had 
companions at night who were not ghosts. Gradu- 
ally the phantoms passed — I think when I was 
about ten or eleven I had ceased to fear. It is only in 
dreams now that the old fear ever comes back. 

Now I believe in ghosts. Because I saw them? 
Not at all. I believe in ghosts, though I disbelieve 
in souls. I believe in ghosts because there are no 
ghosts now in the modern world. And the difference 
between a world full of ghosts and another kind of 
world, shows us what ghosts mean — and gods. 

The awful melancholy of that book of Pearson's 
may be summed up in this, I think, — "The Aspira- 
tional has passed forever out of life." It is horribly 
true. What made the aspirational in life.'^ Ghosts. 
Some were called Gods, some Demons, some An- 
gels; — they changed the world for man; they gave 
him courage and purpose and the awe of Nature that 
slowly changed into love; — they filled all things 
with a sense and motion of invisible life, — they 
made both terror and beauty. 

There are no ghosts, no angels and demons and 
gods: all are dead. The world of electricity, steam, 
mathematics, is blank and cold and void. No man 
can even write about it. Who can find a speck of 
romance in it.^^ What are our novelists doing .^^ Craw- 



ll 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 215 

ford must write of Italy or India or ancient Persia; — 
Kipling of India; — Black of remote Scotch country 
life; — James lives only as a marvellous psycholog- 
ist, and he has to live and make his characters live 
on the Continent; — Howells portrays the ugHest 
and harshest commonplaces of a transient demo- 
cracy. What great man is writing, or can write 
of fashionable society anything worth reading, or of 
modern middle life, — or of the poor of cities, — 
unless after the style of "Ginx's Baby"? No! those 
who write must seek their material in those parts of 
the world where ghosts still linger, — in Italy, in 
Spain, in Russia, in the old atmosphere of Cathol- 
icism. The Protestant world has become bald and 
cold as a meeting-house. The ghosts are gone; and 
the results of their departure prove how real they 
were. The Cossacking of Europe might have one 
good result, — that of bringing back the ghosts, — 
with that Wind of the Spirit which moves the ocean I 
of Russian peasant life for the gathering storm. 

Sometimes I think of writing a paper to be called 
"The Vanishing of the Gods." 

Perhaps you are tired of theories. But I want to 
speak of one thing more, — a theorizer, a beautiful 
French boy of seventeen, whose name was Henry 
Charles Reade. He died at seventeen. Friends 
who loved him collected his boyish poems, and 
printed them in a little book, — seven or eight years 
ago. One of these poems expresses a sensation only 
a psychologist of power could explain. It relates to 
what Spencer tells us is relative to all antecedent 
experience. I offer my own "overdone" translation 



216 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

of it — because I have not the original. The original 
was more simple, and in all respects worthy of a bet- 
ter rendering; but the idea is as follows: — 

I think that God resolved to be 

Ungenerous when I came on earth, 
And that the heart He gave to me 

Was old already ere my birth. 

He placed within my childish breast 

A worn-out heart, — to save expense! — 

A heart long tortured by unrest 
And torn by passion's violence. 

Its thousand tender scars proclaim 

A thousand episodes of woe; — 
And yet I know not how it came 

By all those wounds which hurt it so! 

Within its chambers linger hosts 
Of passion-memories never mine, — 

Dead fires, — dreams faded out, — the ghosts ' 
Of suns that long have ceased to shine. 

Perfumes, deliriously sweet, 

Of loves that I have never known, 
It holds, — and burns with maddening heat 

For beauty I may never own. 

O weirdest fate! — O hopeless woe! 

Anguish unrivalled! — peerless pain! — 
To wildly love, — and never know 

The object wildly loved in vain! 

Certainly the lad who could write such a poem at 
sixteen might have been a poet if he lived, — don't 
you think so? 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



January 12, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Twenty thousand thanks 
for your kind criticisms. As to the general verdict, 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 217 

it is the very highest I could wish to obtain from 
you. To write about such matters at all, situated as 
I am, is a hazardous thing, — having no one whoever 
to exchange ideas with by word of mouth. 

Of course your illustration of the Chinese love of 
rhyme (and indeed I ought to have remembered 
Legge's illustrations) knocks one of my sugges- 
tions out of existence; and I shall suppress it. 
Thanks also for notes on the margin, or rather 
queries. The ugliest one, that is, the only one I can't 
answer at all, is the query about quadrupeds. I 
never have been able to satisfactorily explain to my- 
self the contrast offered by the drawings of cats, 
dogs, horses, and, above all, cows, — to the marvel- 
lous drawing of insects, flowers, landscapes, and en 
masse, or as figures in a landscape, even men and 
women. I can't think it is the mere difficulty of size. 
Why should a cow be drawn so much worse than a 
dragon.'^ Yes, that is an ugly matter to get over. 
But, of course, I presumed in my article to refer only 
to things not suggestive of sex; — horses and cows, 
etc., certainly are. Why should a Japanese artist 
astonish the world with drawings of monkeys, and 
not be able to draw a cow.'^ Here again, my theory 
has to face a series of exceptions I can't get over. 
All I can venture is this : — From the intrinsic 
merit of the art itself I cannot help suspecting (or, if 
you like, wishing to suspect) that there may have 
been social conditions, conventions, or disabilities 
of some sort which checked the development of that 
art in one direction, — or perhaps traditions which 
checked it, or perhaps other causes connected with 



218 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

the religion, the agriculture, etc., of the people. All 
this may seem wild. But the common explanation 
that large subjects were beyond the range of Japan- 
ese art does not strike me as tenable. However, here 
I must acknowledge my ignorance. 

As to the two queries on Wordsworth : — I did 
not mean to call Wordsworth obscure, but I think 
Tennyson is more lucid, simpler, requires much less 
mental effort to follow. There is great depth in 
Wordsworth ; — I confess I have to re-read stanzas 
several times to get the meaning clear. Parts of the 
**Ode to Immortality" I think you would acknow- 
ledge hard reading. That Wordsworth conceived 
Nature as Intelligence is alone a good proof of his 
depth. And I must confess my sympathy with 
Arnold's criticism that one must wade through a vast 
heap of rubbish in order to get all the beauties of 
Wordsworth. On the second query, it is true that 
Wordsworth is much less characterized by the an- 
thropomorphic spirit than other poets, — as he is 
also less imaginative; but when he does describe, he 
can look even at houses anthropomorphically, — 

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep, 
And all that mighty heart is lying still! 

However, the question is: — "How do we see the 
beauties of Nature-f^" (By "we" understand the 
artistic West.) Do we generally see them with the 
coldly moral gaze of Wordsworth, or do we not 
rather see them through the passional delight of 
Shelley .^^ — or the fantastic fetichism of Coleridge.'' 
' — or the spirit of the Amourists? I think artists 



TO BASIL HALL CEEAMBERLAIN 219 

generally certainly do not look at Nature like 
Wordsworth. That you yourself cannot, your lines 
about Fuji plainly show, and your much more 
beautiful lines about the colour of the scenery at 
Miyanoshita. Wordsworth represents for me the 
cold theological view of the world; we have to love 
him, because he touches infinite truth betimes, but 
surely he was immensely deficient in sense of im- 
agination! Never in his life could he have felt 
Byron's lines, — 

They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow 
Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; 

They gazed upon the gHttering sea below 
Whence the bi-oad moon rose circling into sight; — 

They heard the waves plash, and the wind so low. 
And saw each other's dark eyes darting light 

Into each other; and beholding this 
Their lips grew near and clung into a kiss. 

He describes sensation almost miraculously, — but 
the sensations are rarely very fanciful. 

Be the intellectual world as it may, however, the 
vast middle class abroad certainly seem to feel that 
all beauty is feminine, and the exceptions in any 
class should not break the rule. But in regard to 
what I said of terrible beauty, even Wordsworth's 
"Yea! Carnage is thy daughter!" is an example. 

Of Corot, I can't speak; I only saw engravings. 
But I think the charm of colour, of sound, of per- 
fume, are all (in spite of Grant Allen's beautiful 
book) related (to-day) to our passional sense. That 
German music should have crowded out Italian for 
a time only proves that we are rising higher into the 
ether; the passional music will come back to favour, 



220 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

etherealized and infinitely more powerful as an 
emotional influence. Of course, I am not supposing 
that you suspect me of a tendency to hard and fast 
rules. There are no general rules of a sharp sort; but 
to insist upon absolute accuracy would kill specula- 
tion and paralyze fancy, — would n't it? 

Mason's criticism is partly right from his point of 
view as expressed in his letter, I think. But I also 
think that neither in this article nor in a previous 
one did he quite understand my drift, which was 
psychological. I still think, as you say, the foreigner 
does not see the real Japanese life, even under the 
most favoured conditions. Only the other day, at a 
Japanese house, my host, drawing his child to his 
breast, and caressing it, said to me: — "We cannot 
do that among ourselves, and the little fellow knows 
he has not any right to come near me [meaning cud- 
dle up to him] when there are guests. But as you 
are a foreigner, you will excuse him." In Izumo, I 
noticed contrary signs, proving that the conduct of 
husband and wife to each other is by rigid rule 
purely formal under observation ; even the pretended 
throwing aside of formality is formal. Of course I 
have learned something of other lives, — but not 
by my own observation. The emotional side, even 
in the case of death, is forever hidden, not from us 
alone, but from all. I heard the other day of trage- 
dies that astounded me. The sufferers — fellow 
teachers — never interrupted duty, nor hinted of 
their loss or suffering in any possible way. They 
would have thought themselves degraded to have 
done so. 



TO BASIL HALL CEIAMBERLAIN 221 

And now for the big? — Are you really surprised 
that I think evolutional philosophy has enormously 
spiritualized our idea of woman and made her in- 
finitely more precious? Well, it is true I have seen 
no books written upon the subject; but the doctrine 
entails the result I specify. Here I would wish to be 
able to talk; to explain my thoughts on paper fully 
would take too long. I can only suggest. The physi- 
cal or material facts of evolution are terribly beau- 
tiful and wonderful. But what is infinitely more 
terrible and beautiful and wonderful is the psycho- 
logical story of evolution. Let us think of a sweet 
young pure girl, with the mother-soul (mutter 
seele?) in her but half -fledged. According to theo- 
logy, what does she represent? A freshly created 
being, moulded by an imaginary God. According to 
materialism, what is she? A perfect female body, 
brought into existence by material laws, and de- 
stined to live and perish like a plant, a human poly- 
cotyledon. According to evolutional philosophy, 
what is she? Not one, — but countless myriads of 
millions of dead in one life manifestation, — an 
incomprehensible Multiple, that has appeared but 
once in the order of the Cosmos, and never can 
appear again. 

But that is only the barest definition. Why is she 
beautiful? Because in the struggles of unknown 
millions of years between the tendency to beauty 
and the tendency to ugliness, — the beautiful tri- 
umphed over unspeakable obstacles and won. Why 
is she good and sweet and lovable? Because by the 
sacrifices, and the love, and the sense of goodness 



f '0^ 



222 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

acquired by countless millions of mothers, — in 
spite of all conceivable suffering and pain and ter- 
ror and fear and wickedness, — the sum of all the 
unthinkable multitude of tendencies in the race to 
goodness triumphed to appear in her. A good man, 
a good woman, seemed a small matter a century ago, 

— men and women were, as for Heine, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 

— 11, 12. But when we learn scientifically at what 
awful cost of suffering and struggle and death any 
single moral being is evolved, surely the sense of the 
value of a life is increased unspeakably. And on the 
other hand, — how much more terrible does a crime 
appear. For of old a crime was a violation of the 
laws of a country, a particular society, a particular 
theology. But in the light of the new philosophy, a 
real crime becomes a crime against not only the to- 
tality of all human experience with right and wrong, 

— but a distinct injury to the universal tendency 
to higher things, — a crime against not humanity 
only, but the entire Cosmos, — against the laws 
that move a hundred millions of systems of worlds. 

Years ago I wrote a story I am now ashamed of; 
but I cut out a paragraph and send it, because it 
embodies some of my fancies on this topic. Still, 
I can't write my thoughts to you; they are things 
to talk over only. Thousands of illustrations only 
could satisfy me. 

Then there is this other very awful thing. Here is 
a woman, for example, who is good, sweet, beauti- 
ful. Since the being of the world, all life, all human- 
ity, all progress has been working against evil and 
death in one line. The end of the line only is visible. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 223 

It is that girl. She represents the supreme effort. 
But she is a creator. Her place is to continue the 
infinite work of the dead. He who weds her has an 
awful responsibility both to the dead and to the 
unborn. To the dead, if he should mar their work. 
To the future, if he plant in that bosom a life in- 
capable of continuing the progress of the past. But 
this is too long. Are you not tired .^^ 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Looking over Saints- 
bury 's "French Literature," which I received only 
to-day, I find in regard to the origin of the alterna- 
tion of masculine with feminine rhymes, a remark. 
As I guessed, you will remember, from our own 
poetry, — it seems the alternate form began with 
Provengal, in which the earlier form was eight- 
syllable lines rhyming together, pair by pair, and, 
subsequently, the form changing, the alternation 
of feminine and masculine began. This would be the 
natural evolutional process, of course. But that 
the invention was Provengal, and made just perhaps 
about the time of the amorous feeling which created 
the courts of Love, would, I think (though Saints- 
bury says nothing about it), account for the first 
place being given to the feminine. 

In the accompanying volume ("Specimens"), also 
received to-day, I find that Saintsbury, who both 
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and in his "History 
of French Literature" characterizes "La Morte 
Amoureuse" as the most perfect of all French short 



224 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

stories, actually cites three pages of it as the only- 
prose sample of Gautier's best work. On the other 
hand, I certainly cannot agree with Saintsbury that 
Baudelaire's " Fleurs de Mai" "were never popular" 
or worthy to be, — nor that Zola and the Realist 
school are insufferably dull, have no art-sense, and 
owe their existence to the appetite for vice. I have 
not read him all, of course; but while some of his 
criticisms both delight and surprise me, others strike 
me as showing total inappreciation of the character- 
istics of the writer. Certainly, it would not be well 
for us if we had to accept the judgment of any one 
literary critic as final. It is only through conflicting 
opinions that we reach the secret both of the faults 
and the merits. 

I noticed that the presents manufactured this 
year show less of innovation than last year. The 
figured silks, haori linings, etc., were among the 
most beautiful things I ever saw, — chrysanthemum 
blossoms, flower sprays of divine colours (including 
an unforgettable blaze of iris-blossoms), — dragons 
and clouds, — birds, etc., and landscapes. The only 
unpleasant break in the hundreds of designs I saw 
was one representing Lieutenant Gunji and Lieu- 
tenant Fukushima exploring ripples and deserts of 
damascening. These were costly; but perhaps the 
simplest things were even more charming. I bought 
piles of towels, because they were just as good as 
kakemono. Some were figured with Chinese poems 
and Japanese poems ; — some had scenes from 
plays; — and some scenes from Oguri Hangwan (!); 
not to speak of views of Matsushima, Fuji, etc. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 225 

The sake cups were less vulgar than last year; but 
I saw one horror, the word beef (sic) in gold letters 
upon fine porcelain (made as presents from butch- 
ers !) 

From Nagasaki I got a Consular letter with ex- 
traordinary spellings; — I enclose as a curiosity. I 
have written a long answer asking advice, but hesi- 
tate to post it. My folks won't hear of becoming 
English citizens, and losing power of acquiring pro- 
perty in the interior. If the Consul Quin is a good 
fellow, he might write to me; but I feel again he 
might snub me, etc. 

It has suddenly occurred to me that my reference 
to masculine and feminine rhyme alternation in 
Provengal is childish, — as I forgot that I did not 
know whether in that era the rhymes were thus 
named at all. What might again be considered, 
however, is the appearance, in early French poetry, 
of verse in two languages, — one line in Latin and 
one in Romance, alternately. Your question is cer- 
tainly most interesting, but difficult to solve. Per- 
haps it can't be certainly solved at all, because the 
early ballad-poetry of the Northern French dialect 
has completely disappeared, if it ever existed, which 
some doubt. 

I fancy I may have discovered the truth about all 
^that disgusts me in government schools. One said 
to me yesterday: "There is little love between 
Istudents and teachers and little zeal in the teaching, 
I — simply because the government schools are offi- 
[cial nurseries. The teacher may be in love with his 
)rofession, but he may not. He is merely a govern- 



226 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

ment official in hard fact. He regards teaching as a 
step to rank, and perhaps to public life in the capac- 
ity of a foreign representative, or a Tokyo office- 
holder. He is appointed not for his abilities, but for 
his relationships or his utilizeability, so to speak. 
The students understand the position perfectly 
well, and act accordingly. There is no more respect, 
much less reverence." 

Let me tell you a rather pleasant story of local 
life. An old shopkeeper who sells us lacquerware had 
a queue, — like not a few other old shopkeepers in 
Kumamoto. He professed to detest all Western 
manners, dress, ideas; and praised the tempora 
antiqua without stint. Whereby he offended young 
^ Japan, and his business diminished. It continued 
to diminish. His young wife lamented, and begged 
him to cut off his queue. He replied that he would 
suffer any torment rather than that. Business be- 
came slacker. Landlord came round for rent. All 
three were samurai. Husband was out. Landlord 
said, "If your husband would cut off his queue he 
might be able to pay his rent ! " " That is just what I 
tell him," said she, — "but he won't listen to me." 
"Let me talk to him!" said the landlord. Queue 
comes in, out of breath, and salutes landlord. Land- 
lord frowns and asks for rent. Usual apologies. 
"Then you get out of my house," says the landlord, 
— "get out at once." Queue cannot understand 
old friend's sudden harshness, becomes humble in 
vain, — makes offers of his stock in payment. 
Landlord says, "Hm! what?" "Anything you like 
in the shop.?" "Hm, word of honour.?" "Yes." 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 227 

Landlord joyfully to wife, "Bring me a scissors, 
quick!" Scissors is brought. Dismay and protests 
checked by the terrible word " Yakusoku." Off goes 
the queue. Owner mourns. Landlord laughs, and 
says, "Old friend, I make you now a present of the 
three months' rent; you owe me nothing." Business 
begins to improve. 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. I feel the power of the anti-foreign reaction. 
The sudden hiss of hatred with which I am greeted 
by passers-by sometimes, in unfamiliar districts, con- 
vinces me that foreigners in the interior would have 
an ugly time in case of political troubles of a very 
likely kind. The only hope for Japan is a return to 
autocracy. 

January 22, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I have just had your 
letter and a new big batch of proofs at the same 
time, up to galley one hundred and eighty-two, — 
makes, I think, over seven hundred pages already, 
but more to come. 

However, I want to chat first. Yes, after I posted 
my last letter, I thought to myself, "He has got me 
on Wordsworth; I can't make out a case there. I 
must give in." Indeed I think more of the Latin 
poets, I suppose; I think of the Latin prose- writers, 
like Gautier describing the hills qui ondulaient comme 
leshanches d^une femme^ when I write those things. 
And you are right; the world is n't all paganized yet. 
Still, I fancy our artistic classes do at the present 



228 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

time feel Nature more in the Latin way than they 
did in Wordsworth's era, — feel her something like 
Symonds did. Your comparison about Wordsworth 

— beautiful as a swan when he glides along with the 
current of a subject befitting his powers, and wad- 
dling clumsily when out of it — is delicious. By the 
way, Baudelaire has a touching poem about a frig- 
ate-bird, or albatross, which you would like, — de- 
scribing the poet's soul superb in its own free azure, 

— but helpless, insulted, ugly, clumsy when striving 
to walk on common earth, — or rather, on a deck, 
where sailors torment it with tobacco pipes, etc. 

^^'^ But about Japanese art. I, too, thought of the 
anatomy question. It did not solve the question for 
me. Why.f^ Because I dorit believe the Greeks knew 
anything about anatomy. I say this after a careful 
study of Winkelmann and the monuments so match- 
lessly engraved by the Society of Dilettanti (what 
would I not give to have the edition I saw !), and the 
engravings of gems, etc., etc. The astounding thing 
is that the great Italians who studied osteology — 
who drew the skeleton before covering it with 
painted flesh — never approached the commonest 
Greek outline. Did the Greeks ever dissect .^^ It 
strikes me their religion would have rendered that 
impossible, and their humanity. How did they man- 
age? What is the awful, — really awful secret of 
their knowledge of grace? We know the geometrical 
rules for the face. But those for the limbs, — those 
long, lithe, light, wondrous limbs ! and the torso, — 
and the divine symmetry of the rest, — we cannot 
find. We know they drew by rule, squaring off the 



II 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 229 

surface with cross-lines first. But what was the 
rule? And how did they find it? And the muscles 
of the Farnese, — the suppleness of the miraculous 
Aphrodite, — the abdominal lines of the Apollo, — 
nay, the mere set of the limbs of the smallest nude 
figure on a gem! Yet they cannot have studied 
anatomy at all in the modern sense. No; they loved 
the body, — they found the secrets of the divine 
geometrical idea of it through the intuition of that 
love, possible only in a time when there was no sense 
of shame or shyness or what we call conscience about 
sexual matters in themselves. I can't think scientific 
knowledge of anatomy could have helped them 
much in groping for the pure ideal which they found ; 
it would rather have balked them. And I don't 
think ignorance of the subject would alone explain 
the Japanese incapacity in the anatomical direction. 

Strange to say, however, yesterday I saw an 
artistic cow! Really! I had been invited to look at 
some kakemono by Ippo, and lo ! — the first was a 
running cow. It was very good. But why.'' Curi- 
ously enough the cow had been drawn exactly like an 
iyised; the figure was about as large as this sheet, and 
foreshortened, — the hind quarters being turned 
toward the gazer. What the artist had caught was 
the motion, — the queer crooked lumbering knock- 
kneed motion of the cow. I don't believe he could 
have done it on a bigger scale at all; he could not 
have then given the sense of the gawky movement. 

I found this in the Athenceum : — 

"Give me thy dreams!" she said; and I, 
With empty hands, and very poor. 



230 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Watched my fair flowery visions die • 
Upon the temple's marble floor. 

"Give joy!" she cried. I let joy go; — 
I saw with cold unclouded eyes 
The crimson of the sunset glow 
Across the disenchanted skies. 

"Give me thy youth," she said. I gave; 
And, sudden-clouded, died the sun; — 
And on the grey mound of a grave 
Fell the slow raindrops, one by one. 

"Give love!" she cried. I gave that too. 

" Give beauty!" Beauty sighed and fled. 
For what, on earth, should beauty do. 
When love, who was her life, was dead? 

She took the balm of innocent tears 

To hiss upon her altar-coal, — 
She took the hopes of all the years. 

And, at the last, she took my soul. 

With heart made empty of delight 

And hands that held no more fair things, 

I questioned her; — "What shall requite 
The savour of my offerings?" 

"The Gods," she said, — "with generous hand 
Give guerdon for thy gifts of cost; 
Wisdom is thine, to understand 

The worth of all that thou hast lost." 

(E. Nesbit.) 

It strikes me that the workmanship might be vastly 
improved; but the imagery, the thought, the moral 
of the verses are true poetry in spite of the flaws. 
Ever truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Mason likes dreams. I send a sample of a genuine 
one, described as exactly as I knew how, — without 
any additional imaginings. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 231 

P. S. I forgot another thing. You are certainly- 
right in holding that both sexes ought to be equally 
exalted by the philosophical idea of character evolu- 
tion. We do not disagree there at all. But of course, 
each sex studies the other as a something apart 
from itself. I, writing from the masculine point of 
view, think of the woman in the reverential fashion 
for a purpose. 

There is this, however: — The perfect woman 
appeals to us through the evolution in her of those 
particular qualities which latter-day faith especially 
dwells on as divine, — devotion, mercy, pity, infin- 
ite love, tenderness, — all those soul-things that the 
world's bitterness and struggle make us wish for, — 
all those things which are to make and soften the 
peace of the future Age of Gold. But the ideal man 
cannot be figured in this wise; we cannot divest him 
of the aggressive, — we cannot admire him even 
without recognizing in him some latent capacity 
of inspiring fear and some potential hardness of 
soul. As a matter of stern physical fact, the man 
is really the superior being, — morally as well as 
physically; his whole nature is one of greater mass- 
iveness, his sympathies are larger and deeper, his 
sense of justice incomparably higher and broader, 
and woman never can be his equal for plain physio- 
logical reasons. But in the present unhappy con- 
dition of the world, it is only the woman who really 
sees the man; it is only for her that he takes off his 
armour and mask. 

L. H. 



232, LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

January 27, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your letter was a great 
pleasure to me for more reasons than one, — es- 
pecially, however, because giving what a man is 
always most hungry for in this world (unless he is a 
Diogenes) — sympathy. First, about the registration 
question : — Perhaps your idea of my destiny is 
prophetical, and I may again be a traveller. I think 
I ought to travel a little for literary material. But I 
cannot imagine any circumstance, except banish- 
ment by the Tenshi-sama, that should prevent me 
from making my home in Japan. Indeed, I never 
thought about such a possibility. The only grim 
outlook is death, — because I am much older than I 
like to be; in that case English citizenship would be 
of no use to my folk. As for my wife, she is only a 
simple sweet-hearted country -girl ; she would never 
feel at home in the life of the open ports, or be able 
to mingle at ease in the Europeanized circles of their 
Japanese society. Again, none of my folks know 
anything about business; — they would be easily 
deprived of anything. I could leave them in any of 
the settlements; but as for myself, I can't imagine 
anything which could separate us indefinitely in 
life. Leaving the moral question aside altogether — 
though it is a stronger one than any — there comes 
the consideration of the facts, thus : The Japanese 
are still the best people in the world to live among; 
— therefore why wish ever to live elsewhere.'* No 
one will ever, or could ever, love me any more than 
those about me now love me; — and that is the 
most precious consideration in life aside from the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 233 

mere capacity to live. The ugly questions are death 
and lack of employment. The latter is quite pos- 
sible. The former is important. In either event, it 
were better that mother and son were able to live 
in the interior, and own their own homestead, and 
have a little revenue, and take care of each other 
until better times. There's the odds. Yes, as you 
say, it is a hard nut to crack; but I fancy the safe 
side is that suggested by the family instinct — they 
have all decided not to risk loss of citizenship. The 
patriarch, of course, considers me only an adopted 
son; and thinks that Izumo should always be the 
family home. 

What you say of Japanese costume as a protection 
by mimicry is glorious. I should like to meet the 
Japanese who had shrewdness enough to say so de- 
licious a thing ! The fact struck me a good while ago 
(and I embodied it in my article on " Jiujutsu ") that 
the Japanese have never really adopted European 
costume at all. It is worn only outside the house; 
the reifuku as a business uniform, the yofuku as a 
military uniform. Even the officers of the garrison 
resume at home the kimono, obi, haori, and tabi. 
The Kencho officials, the judges, the Governors of 
provinces, the teachers, are, at home, each and 
all, just as much Japanese as they were a thousand 
years ago. The students even hate the uniforms and 
confess its value only as a military garb. 

What you say about the French rhymes again is 
of extreme interest to me, — showing how enor- 
mously complicated the most apparently simple 
subject always proves under the examination of a 



234 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

thinker. I believe everything you say about the 
"pause" — value of the single rhyme, etc. But the 
question first suggested by you — the precedence 
given to the feminine rhyme — would not be solved 
by any of these discoveries, I think; — although 
they would explain the raison d'etre for the retention 
of the rule. I don't think it was a gradual evolution, 
— though it may have been ; because far, far back in 
the history of French literature it still appears, and 
because exceptions would only prove the rule by 
their comparative rarity. I still imagine (and will 
do so until a proof to the contrary turns up) that 
the solution is to be found in the old rules of Proven- 
cal lyric poetry, — which strongly affected the 
Northern lighter verse that it preceded, so far as we 
are able to learn. Of course, this idea leaves out the 
supposition, for which no positive proof exists, that 
a mass of Northern ballad literature, antedating the 
" Song of Roland," etc., has been lost. Saintsbury 
thinks this an unsubstantiated conjecture; and the 
extraordinary vitality of ballad literature elsewhere 
is in his favour. 

I suppose you can scarcely have failed to observe 
the extraordinary benevolence exercised toward 
students throughout the country. Every official 
and every teacher — or nearly every — has a 
number of shosei in his house. Nominally they 
should support themselves, but I fancy they are in 
all cases largely aided, even as to food. What you 
may not have noticed, perhaps, is that in modern 
Japanese houses of a fair class — such as my own — 
special architectural provision is made for shosei. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 235 

There are two or more small walled-off rooms (solid 
kabe-work) contrived about the entrance which are 
called "student-rooms." The soshi-husiness in 
Tokyo represents only the perversion of this bene- 
volent custom to political ends. I myself intend, if 
things turn out pretty well, to take an Izumo stu- 
dent or two later on, and help as far as can reason- 
ably be expected. I am often asked by local stu- 
dents, but as often refuse; for others have prior 
claims, and, besides, my present house is too small. 

The native benevolence does not draw the line 
at shosei. I know a number of cases of hard-worked 
teachers contributing regularly every month to the 
university expenses of boys whom they have taught. 
I asked, "Are they really grateful.^" of a very cyn- 
ical professor. He said, "Yes, I believe they are; 
— they are grateful to their Japanese teachers for 
personal favours." I said, "But they are not 
grateful to foreign teachers.'^" He answered, — 
"Well, no: that is quite a different matter." Then 
I wondered whether this is not just because we 
foreign teachers are really so much more selfish 
towards them — for reasons we cannot help, of 
course. 

Lastly : — The benevolence of the teachers does 
not stop there. Special teachers devote their whole 
spare time to unpaid, gratuitous teaching, — in 
many instances. Take jiujutsu ! Our present teacher, 
a disciple of Kano's, builds here at his own expense, 
in his own residence grounds, a jiujutsu hall, and 
teaches all his spare time without a cent of remuner- 
ation. Take natural history ! The least sympathetic 



236 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

of all the teachers gives his whole leisure to extra 
labour in this direction. Perhaps it is the very excess 
of such kindness on the part of the native teachers 
which creates the feeling of "offness" between the 
foreign teacher and the students. His greatest 
kindness suffers terribly by comparison. 

Again the foreign teacher is trusted only as an 
intellectual machine. His moral notions, his sym- 
pathies, his intuitions, his educational ideas are not 
trusted at all ; — a Japanese teacher is always con- 
sulted by preference. There seems to be the set con- 
viction in every oflScial mind that a foreigner cannot 
understand Japanese students. Indeed I suspect 
that those among us who sympathize with them, 
and wish to know them, may really understand 
them much better than they can understand us, — 
which is saying a good deal, — just because of this 
solid conviction about our mental incapacity. . . . 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Extract from a composition now before me: — 
"I think the orders of the Mombusho are very 
cruel to our students. According to this document, 
the students must be very humble to their masters. 
We are giving the money for thanks for our lessons. 
The masters, who are only obliged to teach us, have 
no affection for us, — so that we also have none 
for them. Whenever by chance there happens any 
disagreeing between teachers and students, then 
the students seem in the teachers' eyes to be venom- 
ous snakes, and 'the cruelty carried up to our 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 237 

head,' so that anger is more encouraged than ever. 
(I don't quite understand this.) 

*' In Japan there used to be good customs, — to 
honour His Majesty Our Emperor, to love our 
parents, and to reverence the old. Now the only 
precepts are about carefulness. Our hearts are 
infected with European false-hearted customs." 

Well, —but is n't it true.^ 

L. H. 

January 30, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I am really overwhelmed, 
and can't say much in way of thanks. The trans- 
lation delights me beyond all measure; it is exactly 
the thing I dreamed of! — transliteration and all. 
As I began to read it I began to sing, — for the 
whole thing flashed with melody at once, — the 
new jerky, menacing, clarion-style, — with all the 
emphasis phalanxed at the line-ends, like bayonets. 
It lives; and I am going to try to versify it. I am 
very weak and inexperienced in versifying, however; 
and it will take time. Then I will offer you the sam- 
ple, to be judged. Your MS. I will always preserve 
as a very dear thing. But do not ever take such 
trouble for me again, — because it would only make 
me ashamed. Of course, I shall try to use the song 
for the Kumamoto paper in my own way, if you 
wish. . . . 

Is n't Lowell much like those tropical fruits that 
are ripened only by sun? He has had none of the 
frost of life to sweeten him. Tropical fruits, you 
know, are terribly disappointing, — though very 



238 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

lovely to the eye. You must go North, and far 
North, to get the fruits that have the true rich flav- 
our and nutritive force. They have been ripened by 
sharp winds and frosts. So with men, is n't it? The 
man who has not suffered, has had only half of his 
nervous system developed. He can touch and feel 
life on one side only. It is the man who has had to 
fight with the world's rough weather that can feel 
life to several dimensions. Hence that Goethe- 
verse you know so much better than I do, — 

Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, — 
Who ne'er, the lonely midnight hours. 
Weeping upon his bed hath sate, 
He knows ye not, Ye Heavenly Powers! 

And so the whirligig of Time works! Would it not 
be enough to make one doubt the Unutterable, were 
all powers and privileges of feeling, seeing, and think- 
ing possible to ripen only by fertilizing the life-soil 
with gold-dust? The Eternities and the Immens- 
ities seem to equalize things pretty well after all ! 
Perhaps the highest sympathies cannot be evolved 
at all without subjection, for some time at least, to 
the discipline of pain. 

Just as you suppose, the house revolves around 
the little boy now; I have greatly fallen into obliv- 
ion. How good the Japanese are to children, — even 
the most extravagant things said do not tell. The 
little creature's eyes, though, are bright blue; and 
I wonder whether his possible foreign appearance 
would cause him any trouble with future school- 
mates. In Kumamoto children are not gentle. The 
old grandfather is the most delighted. He used to 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 239 

take care of the children of the Daimyo of Izumo 
(Matsudaira Dewa-no-kami, I think) in his youth, 
— and is accustomed to children; besides, he has 
still the heart of a child. He sings the lullabys of 
long ago, and among many others one which goes 
something like this : — 

Tsuru sennen 
Kame wa mannen, — 
Urashima Taro, hassen zai, 
Tobo Saku 
Hyaku mutsu; 
Take-Uji Daijin 
Sambiaku yo: 
Inagaki Kaji-Wo 
Kono tori. 

(He is great-grandfather by the adoption only of my 
wife by his son. She was a Koizumi, daughter of a 
samurai of much higher rank, — old Karo stock.) 

I did not believe it was possible for one child to 
give constant labour, night and day, to seven per- 
sons; yet such is the fact. If I protest, I am asked 
to help — which doesn't suit my occupations; be- 
sides, the child feels strangely afraid of me: I am 
so clumsy! 

I made a speech by request Saturday on "The 
Future of the Orient," and I think the students are 
going to print it. I never sent you any of my printed 
speeches from Matsue, — there was nothing in them 
that would not have seemed platitude to you. If 
this be printed, however, I will send it, as it is a sort 
of philosophical history of the invasion of the West- 
ern Barbarians, — a supplement to the views of 
Pearson. 



240 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

The secret of many enthusiasms evoked by na- 
tional song must be, I imagine, hidden from those 
of ahen race and experience. I was horribly disap- 
pointed by the "Ranz des Vaches:" perhaps one 
must have lived in Switzerland to understand it. 
Songs there are, like the" Marseillaise," which ex- 
plain their history by the melody alone : so power- 
fully do they reflect the emotion of an hour. But 
I doubt whether even so splendid a song as the 
"Death of Nelson," with its shouting lines, — 

England expects 
That every man 
This day will do his duty, — 

could be fully understood by any Latin. And what 
would an Irish or Scotch air mean to an Italian or 
a Spaniard, in most cases .^^ Association is the great 
witchcraft. Still there are songs which combine the 
triple charm of poetry, melody, and association. 

"Patti is going to sing at the St. Charles," said 
a friend to me years ago: — "I know you hate the 
theatre, but you must go." (I had been surfeited 
with drama by old duty as a dramatic reporter, and 
had vowed not to enter a theatre again.) I went. 
There was a great dim pressure, a stifling heat, a 
whispering of silks, a weight of toilet-perfumes. Then 
came an awful hush; — all the silks stopped whis- 
pering. And there suddenly sweetened out through 
that dead hot air a clear, cool, tense thread-gush of 
melody unlike any sound I had ever heard before 
save — in tropical nights — from the throat of a 
mockingbird. It was " Auld Lang Syne " only — but 
with never a tremolo or artifice: — a marvellous, au- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 241 

dacious simplicity of utterance. The silver of that 
singing rings in my heart still. 

There is no song which moves me so much, — not 
because of the "intolerable pathos" only — as 
Matthew Arnold calls it — of the words, nor only 
because of the souvenir of the divine voice. But 
there is a dream fastened to that song, — the dream 
of an Indian city stifling in reek of pestilence and 
smoke of battle, — trenches piled with sweltering 
corpses, — grim preparations against worse than 
death, — the sense of vast remoteness from all dear 
things, — and the sudden lighting up of all those 
memories which grow vivid only at the last hour. 
And then, like one of those memories itself, — start- 
ling beyond all startlingness, — the Highland pip- 
ing beyond the walls, — 

We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, 

Frae morning sun till dine; 
But seas between us braid hae roared 

Sin' Auld Lang Syne. 

I believe it was first the clan call of the MacGregors; 

— then "Auld Lang Syne." What was Beethoven 
to that? 

Well, your mere statement of the history of the 
existing military songs of course kills all hope of 
finding in them anything corresponding to sincer- 
ity of thought and true emotional art. Such merits 
belong only to spontaneous work, and especially to 
the creations of the people. Only the melodies and 
the historical or local suggestions can therefore ac- 
count for the excitement these new songs produce; 

— and the most one could attempt would be to give 



242 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

the lilt and an occasional suggestive fragment, — 
in a purely literary study of them. On the other 
hand, their Zeit-geist quality is of the most extraor- 
dinary, and worthy of a very elaborate essay. The 
idea of "Supensa" and "Dawin" is too enor- 
mously grotesque ! — what a study you could make ! 
The romance would n't be on the surface, — but 
deep down under the whole thing there is certainly 
the broad interest of a race-effort for independence. 
It would apologize for the atrocities of many an 
utterance. ''Supensa"! ! — "Da-win"! ! ! 

I read Kipling's ballad three times last night, and 
every time I found new surprises in it. Queer how 
he hits the local colour and the exact human tone 
always. I used to chat while stopping at Carey's 
in Yokohama with just such men and the sealers. I 
rather like seamen, engineers, — all that hard class. 
They can tell you wonderful things; and their talk 
is never dull. But to use it like Kipling one must 
have worked with them, lived their life. I always 
fail in trying to work out one of their yarns; the 
stage of the action is too unfamiliar to me. 

Since you are indirectly responsible for my hor- 
rid mistake about Mr. Okakura's observation, I will 
revenge myself by offering you a caricature in words 
of Sully Prudhomme's, — 

Bleus ou noirs, — tous aimes, tous beaux, 
Des yeux sans nombre ont vu I'aurore; 

lis dorment au fond des tombeaux 
Et le soleil se leve encore! 

If you are disgusted, remember it is your own kind- 
est fault. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 243 

I must write some curious Kumamoto news to 
you in a few days. The contradiction of facts and 
feelings throughout my notes to you may amuse 
you; that contradiction, however, reflects the con- 
flict of the still uninterpreted existence about me. 
And my letters are too prolix and gushy, I know; 
but if I stopped to polish them, I would never get 
through, nor would I feel quite honest. 

With sincere thanks. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

February 2, 1894. 

^ Fendulum on the left. 

Dear Chamberlain, — The heading does not 
imply that I feel out of sorts, or dissatisfied, or lone- 
some. It signifies only that in spite of the most 
obstinate optimism, perceptions of the pessimistic 
sort are forcing themselves upon me. As the last 
page of my optimistic volumes left for Boston, I 
said to my own soul, — "Oh! you foolish thing! 
what an illusion it all was!!" My soul made no 
answer. She only looked down on the ground. 

Smallness, after all, is the word. You called at- 
tention to the multitude of words in Loti expressing 
smallness. He saw outwardly and on the surface 
only. Yet one who sees inwardly is forced at last 
to think of smallness. After all, what is there large 
in Japan except Fuji, and the ranges? What has 
man made that is large .^^ What has he done that is 
large? What does he think that is large? What does 
he feel that is large? His gods are ghosts only, — 



844 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

who eat tiny, tiny, tiny repasts. His cities are vast 
collections of wooden huts. His temples are scarcely 
better. His castles are mere timber barricades. 

And very small his imaginations are. What is 
large about them? His poems, which are only 
tiny pictures .^^ — his deepest sentiments of heroism 
which he shares with the ant and the wasp ! — his 
romances, medisevally tiresome, yet without any 
of the strength of our own mediaevalism ! Always 
details, — details infinite in number and variety, 
infinitesimal in character. And to-day, what is his 
tendency ^ To make everything that he adopts small 
— philosophy, sciences, material, arts, machinery; — 
everything is modified in many ways, but uni- 
formly diminished for Lilliput. And Lilliput is not 
tall enough to see far. Cosmic emotions do not 
come to Lilliputians. Did any Japanese ever feel 
such an emotion.^^ Will any ever feel one? 

I watch with amusement the tendency to the 
disease which the Saturday Review, or somebody 
else, called "Specialistitis." Does not the difference 
between the average Japanese mind and the aver- 
age European mind seem to be something like the 
following: — 



Thinking in 


Thinking in 


small detail 


relations 


OBJECT 


OBJECT 


Ideas, habitually 


Ideas habitually 


dissociated, and never 


coordinated and 


synthetized, would 


synthetized, would 


never produce any line 


unite into a single 


of thought capable of 


line of thought. 


giving any result. 





TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 245 

And then again the comparative difference in 
mass between mere feeling in Western and in Japan- 
ese people ! When I think of what is expressed by 
a musical emotion, — a mere memory of Verdi; — 
by a Greek marble; — by a religious exaltation; 
— by a Gothic church ; — by a poem — how enor- 
mous the difference in volume of life. We are Brob- 
dignagians! And yet, perhaps, the future is to these 
races! The age of giant feelings, like the age of giant 
mammals, may be succeeded by an era of smaller 
life — a life without dreams and aspirations above 
the material. Do you know Quinet's tremendous 
prose-poem about the Cathedral.'^ "^H.^ 

But in a purely, hopelessly industrial age, what 
would be the use of dreams.^ And that age is com- 
ing. Then the men who are giants will all starve to 
death; and the earth will be peopled by the extreme- 
ly small, and governed by extremely small ideas. 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

February 12, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I have been silent for 
some days, being crazy with the labour of reading, 
revising, and indexing 490 plate-proofs. Therewith 
came a letter which will not please you, — but 
which I enclose, as a duty. 

I think your love of indexing is simply an indi- 
cation of your force of purpose. The only way to 
face a painful thing satisfactorily is to train one's self 
by sheer strength of will to love it. This can be 
done; and you seem to have done it. But I suspect 



246 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

it is a comparatively recent feeling because you 
never indexed the " Kojiki," which greatly needs in- 
dexing. I hate — detest — abominate indexing ; but 
I will gladly help some day to make an index for 
the '* Kojiki," if you want. Such an index would 
have to be enormous. 

A subject on which we are as "two souls, etc.," is 
chess — "perhaps, mathematics and kindred things : 
all forms of calculation for the mere pleasure of the 
exercise. I have not even the faculty, which is an 
awful confession. What I can't understand is how 
so amiable a man as Mason can be a good chess- 
player, — or how, being a good chess-player, he 
should not be a first-class man of business, — a big 
merchant, etc. Strong chess-players, mathemati- 
cians (except the crazy sort), and all men with 
remarkable powers of calculation seem to me to 
have all the qualities for success in big things; — 
but they also seem to be rather hard. It is difficult 
for me to imagine Mason as a good chess-player, 
simply because he is so delightful a letter-writer. 

*'A South American Republic!" I believe it. 
Spencer's explanation of the Spanish-American 
incapacity for autonomy is the half-breed blood. 
The Indian ancestral impulse overpowers all tend- 
ency to social integration of the highest kind. The 
Japanese have not this trouble to contend with. 
But they have others, — shared perhaps with the 
Spanish, whom they most seem to resemble (i. e., if 
they can be said to resemble any Western race at 
all). The Northern capacity for autonomy is im- 
memorially old, racial, and is physiologically repre- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 247 

sented by enormous capacity of self-restraint by 
judgment. One should suppose, on a superficial 
view of things, that the highest self-restraint was 
exemplified in the Japanese race. But I am con- 
vinced that it is n't. Remove the necessity for 
religious and social submission, and they will show 
no self-restraint at all. Why.'^ Because the self- 
restraint of the Northern sort requires large-mind- 
edness. It is rendered possible only by large, 
straight, powerful apprehensions of general truths, 
and the general effects of general causes. The 
ability to think in relations, and in abstract rela- 
tions, alone accounts for the existence of England. 
Will the Japanese learn to think in relations — as 
a people ? Not before the sun dies, I fear. The men 
who now think in relations are — the old masters 
of the Buddhist philosophy! Not the politicians, 
nor the students, nor the native teachers. 

I think it will be Korea over again — in regard 
to public education. The first enormous burst of 
zeal has been succeeded by a number of reactions, 
— all tending toward a dimly visible end, — a uni- 
versal crash. The impossible was attempted at the 
beginning; — then preference was given to the pos- 
sible. The teaching of English was restricted every 
year. The foreign teachers and managers are being 
got rid of as quickly as possible ; — and the insti- 
tutions founded and operated by them are falling 
into degradation year by year. Instead of trying 
to keep up the fabric, the appropriations are an- 
nually decreased. Compare the Sapporo College of 
1871 with that of to-day ! The incomes of the Middle 



248 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Schools are being reduced. The remuneration of all 
foreign teachers has been reduced. The systems of 
teaching devised for perpetuity have all been aban- 
doned — except perhaps in Tokyo. There is no system 
elsewhere. To establish a system would be impossi- 
ble now. To establish discipline would be impossible. 
To dyke back in any way the constant movement 
toward utter disintegration would be impossible. 

Lest any efforts should be made to establish a 
system, to enforce discipline, to crystallize anything, 
— all educational officials and all other officials are 
being perpetually removed from place to place. 
Here we have Spencer's changes '*from integrated 
to disintegrated movements." But all plans and 
purposes being fully understood, even by the pub- 
lic, the attacks made upon the educational sys- 
tem as a whole will continue; demands for further 
reductions in expenditure will be regularly made 
and acceded to ; — the Mombusho will certainly 
become what Hasegawa Tai already called it, — a 
bakemono-yashiki; the students will revolt, desert, 
or disappear; — and the things will disappear also 
from want of funds to prop them up. I think it is 
reasonable to expect that, in spite of Japanese 
pride, the Higher Middle Schools will shortly 
(i. e., within a decade) vanish. They will probably 
be first changed in some way so as to cover up the 
shame of their abandonment, — and gradually 
dropped. Kencho schools will follow, — by the 
hundreds. Government will drop education per- 
force; and it will have to be all reconstructed by 
private effort. This seems possible to many. To 



m 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 249 

me it now seems much more than possible. The 
military and naval schools promise to last a little 
longer. But how much longer.'^ Assuredly there 
will be also a reaction in that direction. 

One reason why I think thus hluely is that Japan' 
naturally but unfortunately overestimated her physi- 
ology. Mental capacity is nervous capacity. . . . 

I think that universal education, just like uni- 
versal suffrage, etc., is a humbug in every country. 
It seems to me especially so in Japan. Why waste 
the national forces in the effort to bestow it on the 
millions who cannot profit by it, and to whom 
therefore it can only be made pernicious.'* In this 
school, certainly only a third of the scholars ought 
to be allowed to remain. The rest are wasting their 
youth. Men of marked capacity alone ought to have 
the highest opportunities. A reform in higher educa- 
tion ought to mean the remodelling of the system 
for the sole benefit of extraordinary capacities. 

I should like to be mistaken about all this. But 
the pendulum won't move any more. I feel it is no 
use to pretend to one's self that the race is equal 
to its own ambitions. I feel it is no use to optimize 
about anything in relation to it. That is bad, — 
is n't it.^ The opening of the country was very 
wrong, — a crime. . . . Fairyland is already dead ; 
— perhaps the anti-foreign feeling at present is no 
more than the vague national consciousness of what 
must come. "That which ye fear exceedingly, shall 
come upon you," — saith Isaiah. 

Ever most faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



250 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

February 16, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, When you reissue "Things 
Japanese," perhaps an extra line or two about baths 
might be of interest. The custom of singing in pub- 
lic baths is worth commenting upon. In Tottori 
there is a famous "o-furo-uta." 

I have been thinking how disappointing Japanese 
song-titles are. From a Western point of view the 
titles are most suggestive — but nothing suggested 
is to be found. Your criticism seems to be just; 
"apples of Sodom and ropes of sand." 

Perhaps the condition of the Japanese dog is 
one thing which tells powerfully against our beliefs 
about the influence of Buddhism upon the treatment 
of animals. The Japanese dog remains very close 
to the primitive wolf or jackal. The "chin" makes 
only an exception to the rule. We must talk of 
the dog in general. What a difference between the 
Western and the Japanese dog! How different the 
gaze, the intuition, the memory! And how utterly 
deficient the Japanese dog in gratitude! And how 
indifferent to the question of who owns him. He 
is still pretty savage, — occasionally shows it in 
very ugly ways. He feeds his young exactly like a 
wolf, — chewing up, half -digesting, and then re- 
gorging for the benefit of the pup. He is curiously 
cunning, — but in a savage, sneaking way. 

A great russet brute lies on the sunny half of the 
street facing the college. He lets the children play 
about him, but is n't demonstrative; Japanese 
dogs never are. He is apathetic in demeanour. I 
notice his sharp ears suddenly prick, and his sharp 



I 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 251 

eyes aim for a minute far down the road. That 
means inward emotion; but what it is I can't im- 
agine, because he dehberately turns his head the 
other way, and stares at the smoke of the Aso-San. 
Presently I discern — far, far away — the cause of 
the momentary emotion, coming at a lope. It is a 
dog of foreign breed, — setter build, — long, light, 
with silky, drooping ears. Approaching, his very 
large eyes get bigger. He sees the red bulk lying in 
the middle of the road. A moment he hesitates; 
but the wolfish muzzle is pointed toward Aso-San. 
There is a chance. The Gwai-koku-jin "spurts" to 
pass. But at exactly the right moment the red jaws 
take him by the back. Oh ! the agony and the howl- 
ing! The foreign yowls, yelps, desperately fights. 
The native does n't make a sound, — he only bites. 
For half a mile he follows the fugitive, — rolls 
him over, — turns him in circles, — torments him 
into frenzy. At last he comes back slowly, and lies 
down again, without a sign of excitement, among the 
children. A peasant strides along with his horse, 
and scowls at the dog. The late warrior suddenly 
changes to jackal, — because the peasant happens 
to have a bamboo. Such a combination of cunning, 
ferocity, and cowardice is not of the civilized dog. 

I have not yet been able to find a civilized cat. 
There must be some, but they are very rare. Shy- 
ness and treachery characterize most of them. 

The horses I don't understand at all. Never 
have I seen one struck. The peasant marches along 
with them, speaks gently to them, does not ask 
them to labour harder than himself. I followed one 



;i^ 



252 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

day, for fully two miles, a peasant who walked 
behind his horse, holding the ends of two heavy 
planks fastened to the animal's back. The motion 
of the horse caused them to oscillate; — so the 
peasant held the ends and handled them in such a 
manner as to prevent the horse's back from be- 
ing rubbed. I see lots of such actions. But why 
are these horses so horribly afraid? They actually 
whinny with fear when they hear a kuruma com- 
ing. It gives one an awful suspicion that they must 
have been started out in life with a sufficient experi- 
ence of pain to render all further correction unneces- 
sary. They give one the same unpleasant impression 
as performing dogs do — which is unspeakable. 

This brings me to Buddhism. Surely, as you say, 
it were better for Japan to have any civilized relig- 
ion than none, — and the danger is that of having 
none. You can't imagine how many compositions 
I get containing such words as — "Is there a God? 
— I don't know" — which, strange as it may seem 
to you, does n't rejoice me at all. I am agnostic, 
atheist, anything theologians like to call me; but 
what a loss to the young mind of eighteen or 
twenty years must be the absence of all that sense 
of reverence and tenderness which the mystery of 
the infinite gives. Religion has been very much to 
me, and I am still profoundly religious in a vague 
\ way. It will be a very ugly world when the religious 
sense is dead in all children. For it is the poetry of 
the young, that should colour all after-thought, — 
or at least render cosmic emotions possible later on. 

The Shinshu does seem to hold its own, or to 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 253 

gain(?). But there are curious obstacles. The 
students of its schools are obliged to reverence the 
Head of the sect as a living Buddha, — wherefore 
modern ideas must be tabooed, or modified and dis- 
torted. (The same thing, I believe, in the Univers- 
ity; for at one time it was seriously proposed to 
secure John Fiske for the chair of Philosophy, but 
the discovery that the evolution theory assailed the 
Imperial prerogatives ended that project. I am also 
told there is no chance of having the Spencerian or 
any other form of Western philosophy ably taught 
in Japan for similar reasons — much as they pre- 
tend to follow Spencer.) But, as I was saying, what 
of the other sects of Buddhism.'' — the enormous ig- 
norance, the hideous poverty, the corruption.'' . . . 

Shinto, on the other hand, has native nobility. 
It seems to me in many ways a noble creed ; and the 
absurdities of its records of the Gods are not, after 
all, greater than those of other faiths, — either 
Indian or Hebrew or Moslem. But the fox-temples 
and fox-rites and divinations and exorcism mixed 
up with it, seem to have much more influence than 
the real thing. 

Finally Christianity offers the small choice of 
thirty-two different creeds. And the young man 
of the twenty-seventh year of Meiji is disgusted. 
He thinks of all these beliefs as various forms of 
mental disease, and cannot naturally be expected 
to believe, without a study in advance of his years, 
that all — even the most corrupt — are growths 
rooted in universal truth. 

For the educated classes no religion seems to be 



254 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

the certain goal. This means, not only that the 
whole moral experience of the past is being thrown 
overboard by that class, with nothing to replace it; 
but it means the rapid widening of an impassable 
gulf between the educated and the common people 

— the total separation of the head from the body, 

— or at best a sort of nuke-kuhi future. A ghastly 
business ! 

What is there, after all, to love in Japan except 
what is passing away.^^ There are fairer lands and 
skies; — there is a larger — a vastly larger life — 
as much larger as Sirius is larger than the moon. 
The charm was the charm of Nature in human 
nature and in human art, — simplicity, — mutual 
kindness, — child-faith, — gentleness, — politeness. 
These are evaporating more rapidly than ether from 
an uncorked bottle. And then what will there be 
but memories? The one tolerably good thing yet is 
the cottony softness of all this life ; — the let-alone 
spirit of it, — for it even hates work with smiles and 
pretty words. This is good, — although it means 
the absence of large feelings, sympathies, compre- 
hensions. As the stronger the light, the blacker the 
shadow it casts, so are our highest feelings offset 
by evil ones of startling power. One does not meet 
these in Japan. But how long will this condition 
last? The bonds are only now being cast off; — 
the cage doors opened. By and by the games will 
begin — circenses. 

I am through most of the indexing. Really it was 
more pleasant than I had anticipated — gives one 
such an exaggerated idea of the extent of one's work. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 255 

The book seemed to be enormous by the time I got 
to "Zuijin." An enormous illusion — or, rather, 
evocation of the ghost of old Japan. 

Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

February 18, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Just received your de- 
lightful translations, and letter. 

In these short poems, of which I think the two 
specimens forwarded among the most charming 
possible, I have always thought the Japanese just as 
great as they are great in art, — in colour-pictures 
of precise times, moods, sensations. Very, very 
great! Each little poem gives one the same ghostly 
shock that the wonderful print does — only (as in 
these instances) it is more subtle; for it pene- 
trates well into the heart, — thinly, perhaps, like 
an acupuncture, but none the less effectively. No: 
these brief Japanese poems are very wonderful. 
I felt that when I first read the versions of De Rosny 
in America, and afterwards when I read your 
"Classical Poetry," and the more I learn of the old 
life, the more the conviction of the value of that 
poetry grows upon me. Without knowing anything 
about the language, I feel competent to make one 
observation: the poems are characterized by what 
we know to be among the highest qualities of West- 
ern verse, — including one of the qualities most 
marked in Gautier, in Rossetti, in all great modern 
poets, — self-control. This self-control means con- 
centration, means simplicity, means artistic reserve, 



256 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

— and therefore power. The race-character at its 
antique best seems to speak here, — just enough 
and no more. Of course I suppose the study of col- 
our, form, or melody in words is not at all compara- 
ble to Western art; — the self-control is in the utter- 
ance only, the thought. The measure permits only 
the briefest possible utterance, and thus assists the 
art by the cothurne etroit. 

As to genius, I am a profound, earnest believer 
in genius : I think any student of the new psychology 
must be. The literary curse of the century is the 
want of genius, coupled with extraordinary perfec- 
tion in the mastery of all mechanical form. Thou- 
sands can write absolutely correct flat prose in a 
century of different forms of verse, — not only can, 
but do. Hence, what a relief to read a ballad by 
Kipling ! 

How genius exactly works, we shall perhaps never 
know. It means, though, exactly what you say — 
seeing, and seeing in lightning flashes. Perhaps it 
also means remembering, — seeing retrospectively y 
through rifts in the curtain of the past. The faculty 
is, of course, explainable only by the ancestral 
hypothesis: by any other, we should be obliged to 
go back to the old mediaeval ideas for any account 
of it. 

Spencer makes a very beautiful illustration of 
ancestral memory. Imagine a number of coloured 
negatives (each photo, negative representing an ex- 
perience of a different individual) ; and superimpose 
them. The light still passes through; the images 
are blurred more or less; certain details are lost; 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 257 

but the general arrangement of the landscapes, their 
general tone and character, and colour, will still be 
dimly perceptible. 

If this be the general symbolic result, may there 
not be such exceptions as might correspond to 
extraordinary lucidity of the photo-impressions and 
their colours in the possible supposition of negatives 
superimposed. These might account for certain 
perceptivities; and, again, there would necessarily 
ensue the phenomena of strengthening, — I mean 
decupling or centupling a transmitted power by 
certain fortuitous combinations in the memory — 
superimposition. Only vague suggestions; but I 
fancy they must roughly symbolize real facts. 
Ever most faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

February 25, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... Indeed I should hke 
very much to read that book by Loti, and shall take 
good care of it. I have Pater's "Appreciations" — 
would you like them to read.f* They have fine and 
subtle quality, and penetrating needle-points of 
truth ; but I fear the general effect would disappoint 
you. Still the book has become so famous, that I 
think you might like to look at it. Anything I have 
you would like to read is always ready for shipment 
to you at the drop of a postal. 

Two gleams of sunshine: — 

You know there are men in this world that we 
love the first time we look at their faces, and never 
cease to love. I have met two such Japanese, — 



258 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

needless to say never of this generation. The first 
was Koteda Yasusada, now Governor of Niigata. 
The second was Akizuki of Aidzu, an old man of 
seventy-three, Professor of Chinese in the college. 
I have often spoken of him. 

He came to-day to see my boy (for he had been 
away in Tokyo for some months) . He brought gifts, 

— a beautiful plum-tree in blossom, a most quaint 
vase full of sake, and (most precious of all) two kake- 
mono written by himself, inscribed with poems in 
honour or in congratulation — what should I say 

— of Herun-San-no-o-ko-san. He is a great Chinese 
scholar, and famous for calligraphy too. So I had 
this Soul of old Japan in my house for an hour; — 
and the Presence, like the perfume of the plum- 
blossoms, filled all the place and made it some- 
what divine. Were there real Kami, I know they 
would come and smile and look just like that divine 
old man with his long grey beard. 

The other gleam of sun was less bright, but it 
was cheerful, — a visit to the jiujutsu private 
school. Its teacher, Arima Sumihito, long of the 
Nobles' School, is at all events a man. He is a pupil 
of Kano, speaks English perfectly, — the handsom- 
est Japanese I know, — cynically polite, — a fine 
aristocrat: in short, one of those types so different 
from the rest that I never thought before of writ- 
ing about him. The type is impossibly reserved, — 
not attractive, — but decidedly interesting. Well, 
I studied some marvellous things during the exhibi- 
tion there; and as I watched the jiujutsu, and 
studied the surroundings, the idea came to me of 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 259 

a possible normal change, or reform, in the whole 
existing educational system. "Here," I said, "is 
the old samurai school, — severely simple, healthy, 
lovable, romantic. The students delight in this re- 
turn to the old ways, — the squatting on the floor, 
— the perfect natural freedom, — the faultless 
discipline of self-control, — the irreproachable po- 
liteness, — the brotherhood between teacher and 
pupil — " Now could not schools be established 
for all teaching in this very way.^^ I think they 
could. It seems to me now an enormous mistake 
for the Japanese to have tried to adopt the West- 
ern school-system, to have built monstrosities of 
brick, and destroyed the Oriental relation of pupil 
to teacher. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I 'm wondering whether 
you sent me the Herald article about Leland's book 
with a single or double purpose — I mean with a 
possibly suggestive literary purpose. I thought of 
talking to you a long time ago about a book, — not 
of the Leland sort at all, but a book of extraordinary 
or curious personal impressions, touching only cer- 
tain tones and colours of life. However, I don't feel 
ripe enough yet. 

Leland is quite a wonderful person ; but I confess 
to a slight ill-will towards him. The reason has been 
his belittling of Borrow. Now Borrow was as much 
greater in Gypsy matters than Leland, as Leland 
is greater than a police-reporter. Borrow's life was 
a romance; his book "The Bible in Spain," despite 
its forbidding title, is a delight; and his stories are 



260 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

wonderful. Leland tries to belittle him. Leland's 
book on the Gypsy is the dullest ever written, — 
worse incomparably than even Simpson's, and Bor- 
row prepared everything for him. 

By the way, you have read Merimee's " Carmen," 
of course, — matchless story ! — but would you not 
like to read the sweetest and tenderest gypsy-story 
ever written .^^ If you have not read it, let me most 
humbly pray and beseech you to read J. Sheridan 
Le Fanu's "Bird of Passage: A Love-Story." You 
will thank me, if you read it. It is very short. 
Sheridan Le Fanu is a very great artist at his best. 
His "My Uncle Silas" is a terrible, but tremen- 
dously powerful novel. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I am absolutely unpro- 
ductive now, hovering between one thing and an- 
other, — sometimes angry with men, — sometimes 
with the Gods. But I think of many things. I have 
been long writing down extraordinary passages from 
the compositions of students. Some are simply 
queer, — some interest because showing a thought 
that is not as our thought, — some are beautiful, 
as in the old Chinese utterance about the firma- 
ment : — 

*' What thought is so high as it is, — what mind 
is so wide?" 

What most pleases me are subjects taken from 
the memories and thoughts of the boys themselves. 
I have some beauties I know to be original; and I 
have often thought of an essay about them. 

But of a few I am in doubt. Can this be original.'* 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 261 

— (Subject: ''What men remember longest.'') 

"When I was only four years old, my dear, dear 
mother died. It was a winter's day. The wind 
was blowing through the bushes and trees round 
our house. There were no leaves on the trees. 
Quails in the distance whistled with a melancholy 
sound. I remember that as my mother was lying 
in bed, a little before she died, I gave her a sweet 
orange. She smiled and took it and ate it. It was 
the last time she smiled. From that moment when 
she ceased to breathe until to-day, sixteen years 
have elapsed. But to me the time is as a moment. 
The winds that blew when my mother died, blow 
still; — the quails utter the same cries; — all things 
are as then. But my mother never will come back 
again." L. H. 

March 4, 1894. 

Pendulum to the right. 

Dear Chamberlain, — After all, the contract 
did not go back to H. M. &; Co. My little wife was 
too shrewd. She knew nothing about what the 
letter contained, but she saw by my face that I was 
in a bad humour. So, after duly addressing the big 
envelope, she posted it — in a drawer — and asked 
me to-day whether I should not like to have with- 
held some of that correspondence. You see she 
understands me very well. I concluded not to send 
it on finding it had not been sent, but to await the 
results of the letters. Besides, after all, I am not 
sure that the return of the contract would have 
much affected H. M. & Co. 



262 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

I have given up all idea, for the time being, of ever 
living in Tokyo. Really, as you have more than 
once suggested, I think I should find it out of the 
frying-pan into the fire. Besides, I wonder whether 
Japanese life has not spoiled me for any other — at 
least in the temperate zone. The freedom of it, the 
laissez-faire, the softness of things, the indifference, 
the lonesomeness, really constitute a sort of 
psychological tropics. Tropical life in lat. 15°-14° 
destroyed permanently my capacity for physical 
effort; — this psychological tropic of Japanese life 
may have already unfitted me to endure anything 
resembling conventions and unpleasant contacts. 

I suppose, after all, that the populations of the 
Open Ports of the Far East must be much more 
afflicted with hourgeoisme (if I can coin such a word) 
than any others, — partly because composed almost 
exclusively of the mercantile middle-classes, who 
are made by conventions, and partly because the 
conventions themselves, transplanted to exotic soil, 
must there obtain a savage vigour unknown in the 
mother country. Ideas and opinions must be petri- 
fied; "it has been suggested;" "it is hoped;" "it 
is the opinion of the community;" — must be 
phrases of enormous weight there, — primitive war- 
clubs, — stone celts ! Oh, dear, I am blessed after 
all in not having to live where people think they 
must, only because "it has been suggested," — 
while within themselves thinking also, "What an 
infernal humbug!" There is something much worse 
than dwelling in a community governed by the 
revolver, or by Judge Lynch. And that, for me, 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 263 

would be to hold a situation of absolute dependence 
in a community regulated by lawyers, codes, con- 
tracts, and opinions dry and tough as Mexican 
jerked beef. Besides this conception of an open 
port, how innocently comfortable Japanese life is! 

But why is it that these horrors do not exist in 
Roman Catholic countries? Do you find them in 
Italy, or in Spain, or in France? Zola wrote some 
articles once, " Mes Haines," well worth reading. He 
had one on religious influences in literature, — 
holding that Protestant influences cut-and-dried 
and mummified and devitalized everything, — that 
emotional power and high imagination must be 
sought for elsewhere than in Protestant countries. 
Here, of course, Zola fell into the inevitable fallacy 
of a sweeping statement. It is n't all true. But 
there is much truth in it. Protestantism-Puritan- 
ism — substituting conventions for spiritual be- 
liefs — has had the most repressive effect upon 
social freedom and upon imaginative art. Milton 
towers up, as one talks, and Goethe, and a host. 
But Italy made Milton, and Faust is profoundly 
mediseval; and I think we would find that the 
modern English writers we love most are all men 
who have felt the older influences, or who have 
emancipated themselves from all conventions. Rus- 
kin, Rossetti, Symonds, — how pagan or Catholic! 
— Browning, how bathed and interpenetrated with 
the soul of Italy and of the Middle Ages ! — or go 
back further, and compare the feeling of Coleridge, 
Keats, Byron, Shelley, 'with the greys of Cowper and 
Wordsworth. 



264 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Is not the truth also that we English or Ameri- 
cans hate our "awful orderliness" (to use Kipling's 
word) — and all the shams and conventions that 
we perforce obey, and rush to Italy or to France as 
soon as we can get free? — (Do you know Curtis's 
"Howadji in Syria"? — there is such a beautiful 
comparison of the human soul to a camel, — the 
camel that weeps when approaching a city.) But 
what cities do city-haters hate? Venice, Florence, 
Milan, Rome, Genoa? — Seville, Granada, Cadiz, 
Alcantara? — Marseilles, Paris, Rouen? — No, — 
but Liverpool, Manchester, London; New York, 
Chicago, Boston. I believe Wordsworth alone ever 
found London beautiful. What London really is 
seems to me to have been exactly felt only by Dore. 
(You know his "London" which the English did 
not like at all.) And I say this even while wishing 
to be in London again, like Private Ortheris, — "for 
the sights of 'er and the smells of 'er," — "orange- 
peel and hasphalte and gas coming in over Vauxhall 
bridge." 

But I suppose the ultimate value of conventions 
is this : — that they shrivel up all souls except the 
strongest, and that any one able to dwell among 
them and abide by them, and yet remain purely 
himself, becomes a wonder that no Latin country 
can produce. 

I found in " Wilhelm Meister's Travels," one 
of these marvellous little stories by Goethe which 
have a hundred different meanings. Perhaps you 
know "The New Melusine." ... I repeat some 
of the facts only to suggest one application. There 



TO BASEL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 265 

was a man a fairy loved; — and she told him she 
must either say good-bye, or that he must become 
little like herself, and go to dwell with her in her 
father's kingdom. She made him very, very, very 
small, by putting a gold ring upon his finger. Then 
they entered into their tiny world. Everything in 
the palace of the fairy king was unimaginably 
pretty, and the man was petted greatly by the fairy- 
people, and had everything given to him which he 
could desire. He had a pretty child, too; and the 
old king was good to him. After a time, however, 
being ungrateful and selfish, he got tired of all this; 
he dreamed of having been a giant. He supplied 
himself with gold for a journey, and then managed 
to file the ring off his finger, — which made him 
big again, — and he ran away to spend the gold 
in riotous living. He did other horrible things, 
which you may remember. The character of the 
fairy was altogether Japanese — don't you think 
so? And the man was certainly a detestable fellow. 

I have become much more interested in the jiu- 
jutsu teacher I spoke of the other day, and I want 
to try to cultivate him. His slightly frigid polite- 
ness tells me that I shall never get very close to him ; 
but he is certainly a remarkably "fine gentleman" 
as well as an amiable man in a general sense, and 
perhaps I shall have some experiences worth writing 
about to you. 

Of Seki-Baba, whose images used to be placed 
under bridges, and of the bridge-superstitions about 
coughs and colds, you may some day like to know. 
They are naive and interesting. 



S66 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

While the winter lasted the weather was heavenly. 
Now is the season of close warm air, mould, rain, 
and (what you don't especially like) atrocious 
smells. I wonder what Lowell thought of that awful 
cynicism of yours in "Things Japanese" about that 
in Tokyo which "appeals to the nose." 

Faithfully, Lafcadio Hearn. 

March 5, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... Oh ! what a pleasure to 
get the Loti. I have only read the Japanese sketches ; 
and they are really very fine. Of course Loti is very 
unjust to the Japanese woman, and has not yet 
even learned that to understand the beauty of 
another race so remote as the Japanese, requires 
both time and study. It does not strike a European 
at the first glance. He knows also nothing about 
their morals or manners, and his divinations are 
all wrong on these subjects. But aside from all 
his errors, is not the general impression given by 
"Femmes Japonaises," dainty, tender, graceful, 
mysterious and queer. His judgment of the peasant 
woman, of the Japanese interiors, of the love of 
children, are all very pleasing, however we may find 
fault with the details. The trip through the Kyushu 
country is perfection itself: I could smell the rice- 
fields, and cedar groves. That is genius! He says 
strange things betimes, however: — 

"II se forme a la longue dans Fair, un ensemble 
impersonnel d'ames anterieures; — quelque chose 
comme un fiuide ancestral, qui plane et qui veille 
sur les vivants." 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 267 

(I might stagger here; I am not sure. These are 
our thoughts of the thing. But are they Japan- 
ese .^^ I am not sure; but I think not. I think the 
ideas of the ancestral ghosts remain distinctly 
separated in the Japanese mind. I mean the mind 
of the common people. The synthetizing mind of 
the higher intellect might have such an ethereal 
notion — not that of the peasant.) 

"Ces dames marchent les talons en dehors, ce 
qui est une chose de mode, et les reins legerement 
courbes en avant{?). Ce qui leur vient sans doute d'un 
abus hereditaire de reverences.'* 

Not hereditary at all ; but the impulse to make a 
joke was irresistible, and also artistic. 

There is a delicious humour also in Loti betimes, 
— whether conscious or unconscious, I cannot say; 
but I am perfectly certain that you will not be able 
to help laughing after you have read the following 
lines : — 

"Leur musique, qui les passionne, est pour nous 
etrange et lointaine comme leur ame. Quand des 
jeunes filles se reunissent le soir, pour chanter et 
jouer . . . nous ressentons, apres le premier sourire 
etonne, I'impression de quelque chose de tres in- 
connu et de tres mysterieux que des annees d'accli- 
matement intellectuel n* arriveraient pas a nous faire 
completement saisir.** 

If you don't laugh at that, please tell me; the 
n'arriveraient pas to me is delicious. 

I may attempt a little criticism, entre nous. 

"Surtout elles essayent de se derober par le rire 
a Veffroi du surnaturel.'* 



268 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

(A Western thought, — Breton perhaps, Celtic, 
— not of the Orient.) 

"Des superstitions vielles comme le monde, les 
plus etranges et les plus sombres, effroyables a 
entendre conter les soirs." 

(A Celtic or Norse feeling applied to vague ideas 
of what Japanese might seem to believe, but do not 
believe at all. The deep fear, the nightmare fear 
of the supernatural, has never been known in Japan. 
It is not in the race.) 

I will write again as soon as I have read the rest 
of the book. . . . Lafcadio Hearn. 

March 6, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Well, I read Loti all 
through in bed last night — and dropped asleep at 
last to dream of the Venise fantasque et tremhlotante. 

Before talking of the book especially I want to 
utter my heterodoxies and monstrosities in your ear. 
You will not be pleased, I fear; but truth is truth, 
however far it be from accepted standards. 

To me the Japanese eye has a beauty which I 
think Western eyes have not. I have read nasty 
things written about Japanese eyes until I am tired 
of reading them. Now let me defend my seemingly 
monstrous proposition. 

Miss Bird has well said that when one remains 
long in Japan, one finds one's standard of beauty 
changing; and the fact is true of other countries than 
Japan. Any real traveller can give similar experi- 
ences. When I show beautiful European engravings 
of young girls or children to Japanese, what do they 



J 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 269 

say? I have done it fifty times, and whenever I was 
able to get a criticism, it was always the same: — 
"The faces are nice, — all but the eyes: the eyes 
are too big, — the eyes are monstrous." We judge 
by our conventions. The Orient judges by its own. 
Who is right? 

There are eyes and eyes, in all countries — ugly 
and beautiful. To make comparisons of beauty we 
must take the most beautiful types of the West and 
East. If we do this, I think we find the Orient is 
right. The most beautiful pair of eyes I ever saw 
— a pair that fascinated me a great deal too much, 
and caused me to do some foolish things in old 
bachelor days — were Japanese. They were not 
small, but very characteristically racial; the lashes 
were very long, and the opening also of the lids; — 
and the feeling they gave one was that of the eyes 
of a great wonderful bird of prey. — There are won- 
derful eyes in Japan for those who can see. 

The eyelid is so very peculiar that I think its form 
decides — more than any other characteristic of the 
Far Eastern races — the existence of two entirely 
distinct original varieties of mankind. The muscu- 
lar attachments are quite different, and the lines 
of the lashes, — indeed the whole outer anatomy. 

One might ask mockingly whether to Japanese 
eyelids could be applied the Greek term charitoble- 
pharos. I think it could. There is a beauty of the 
Japanese eyelid, quite rare, but very singular, — in 
which the lid-edge seems double, or at least marvel- 
lously grooved, — and the effect is a softness and 
shadowiness difficult to describe. 



270 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

However, it seems to me that the chief beauty of a 
beautiful Japanese eye is in the pecuhar anatomical 
arrangement which characterizes it. The ball of the 
eye is not shown, — the setting is totally hidden. 
The brown smooth skin opens quite suddenly and 
strangely over a moving jewel. Now in the most 
beautiful Western eyes the set of the ball into the 
skull is visible, — the whole orbed form, 'and the 
whole line of the bone-socket, — except in special 
cases. The mechanism is visible. I think that from 
a perfectly artistic point of view, the veiling of the 
mechanism is a greater feat on Nature's part. (I 
have seen a most beautiful pair of Chinese eyes, — 
that I will never forget.) 

I don't mean to make any sweeping general rule. 
I only mean this: *' Compare the most beautiful 
Japanese, or Chinese eye with the most beautiful 
European eye, and see which suffers by compari- 
son." I believe the true artist would say *' neither." 
But that which least shows the machinery behind it 
— the osteological and nervous machinery — now 
appears to me to have the greater charm. I dare 
say such eyes as I speak of are not common; but 
beautiful eyes are common in no country that I have 
ever visited. 

And now I will presume to express my opinion 
about another heresy, — that a white skin is the 
most beautiful. I think it is the least beautiful. The 
Greeks never made a white statue, — they were 
always painted. 

Naturally each race thinks itself the most beauti- 
ful. But we must not think about race in such mat- 



TO BASEL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 271 

ters at all, — only about colour jper se, and its effect 
upon the aesthetic colour-sense in us, derived — as 
we all know through Mr. Grant Allen's populariza- 
tion of a most complex subject — from ancestral 
experience in food choice. The sensation of a beauti- 
ful sunset and that of a ripe apple is not so different 
in origin as might be supposed. 

But to appreciate the beauty of coloured skins, 
it is not simply enough to travel, — one must be- 
come familiar with the sight of them through 
months and years. (So strong our prejudices are!) 
And at last when you perceive there are human 
skins of real gold (living statues of gold, with 
blue hair, like the Carib half-breeds !) — and all 
fruit tints of skins, — orange, and yellow, and 
peach-red, and lustrous browns of countless shades; 
— and all colours of metal, too, — bronzes of 6very 
tone, — one begins to doubt whether a white skin 
is so fine! (If you don't believe these colours, just 
refer to Broca's pattern-books, where you will find 
that all jewel-colours exist in eyes, and all fruit- 
colours and metal colours in skins. I could not be- 
lieve my own eyes, till I saw Broca.) I have seen 
people who had grass-green emeralds instead of 
eyes, and topazes and rubies for eyes. And I have 
seen races with blue hair. 

I do not think the Japanese skin remarkably 
beautiful: the "amber" of Arnold's imagination 
does not exist in this archipelago, — one must go to 
the tropics for that. The Italian or Spanish brown 
seems to me miich richer and finer. But I am only 
talking in general. It seems to me a sort of egg- 



272 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

colour. Well Mahomet says that is the colour of the 
houris, — but it is nothing to other colours that 
exist. 

Now for jet-black, — the smooth velvety black skin 
that remains cold as a lizard under the tropical sun. 

It seems to me extremely beautiful. If it is beauti- 
ful in Art, why should it not be beautiful in Nature? 
As a matter of fact, it isy and has been so acknow- 
ledged even by the most prejudiced slave-owning 
races. 

Either Stanley — or Livingstone, perhaps — told 
the world that after long living in Africa the sight 
of white faces produced something like fear. (And 
the Evil Spirits of Africa are white.) — Well, even 
after a few months alone with black faces, I have 
felt that feeling of uncomfortableness at the sight 
of white faces. Something ghostly, terrible seemed 
to have come into those faces that I had never even 
imagined possible before. I felt for a moment the 
black man's terror of the white. At least I think I 
partly realized what it was. 

You remember the Romans lost their first battles 
with the North through sheer fear. Oculi caerulii et 
truces, — rutilae comae, — magna corpora! — The 
fairer, — the weirder, — the more spectral, — the 
more terrible. Beauty there is in the North, of its 
kind. But it is surely not comparable with the 
wonderful beauty of colour in other races. 

As I write two queer memories come up before me. 

(1) On board a West Indian steamer. — We had 
stopped at some queer island out of our route, 
to the disgust of the captain, who wanted cargo so 



I 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 273 

badly that he had to take it where he could get it. 
— Then it was sugar and lemons. A brown man 
came on board, the owner of the cargo, and tried 
to talk English. We could not understand him at 
first. He made amazing efforts, and at last his talk 
became clear enough to understand. Yet he had 
been a graduate both of some English university 
and of Heidelberg. He had begun even to lose his 
native language. Only at intervals of months could 
he speak with whites. He spoke only the patois of 
the negroes in the valley where he lived alone. His 
plantation was worth £10,000. 

(2) In Martinique, — in an un visited, unknown 
forgotten corner of the island, — a sort of happy 
valley between mountains of this shape, — like the 
Mountains of the Moon. Two whites — brothers — 
alone there for fourteen years. They almost killed 
me with kindness, for the sake of the chat. "Et vous 
etes Anglais ! Mais c'est drole ! " Then in the night, 
under the palms, we sat; and one of the brothers got 
a dusty fiddle out of the Lord-of-Zombis-knows- 
where; and began to play and sing a song about an 
Englishman, of which I can remember only one 
verse (mocking the English accent as he sang) : — 

"L' autre nuit j'ai fait un r§v-e, 

Un reve qui me plait; 
J'avais mis dans mon oreil-le 

Le canon d'un pistolet, 
Et comme je pressais la manivel-le 

La balle a pris son cours [pronounce course] 
Et je sentais sauter ma cervel-le — 

Que ne peut-on rfever tou jours ! 

Que ne peut-on r^ver tou jours! 

(Basso extra profondo) 



274 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

I wish I could get the whole of that song; it was very, 
very funny, — but in the tropics people are so lazy 
you can never get them to copy anything for you. 

Perhaps the French poet was thinking of the 
Englishman who hung himself just because of the 
trouble of dressing and undressing every day. I 
sympathize with that Englishman. I, too, would 
rather hang myself than be obliged to dress and un- 
dress a la mode. 

I wanted to write about Loti, but I shall wait till 
next time. Sufficient for the day is, etc. 

Faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 

Ah! que ne peut-on rever tou jours! 
Que ne peut-on rever tou 

Jours! 

March 7, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — There is very, very great 
art in Loti, — very wonderful art : — 

tTe me souviens aussi de ces silences quelquefois, apres 
qu'elle avait dit une chose profonde, dont le sens paraissait 
se prolonger au milieu de ce calme . . . 

I can think of nothing so exquisite in any English 
writer. The nearest approach to it that I recall are 
the lines in Rossetti's supremely divine "Staff and 
Scrip," — 

And when each anthem failed and ceased. 
It seemed that the last chords 
Still sang the words. ... 

But how much subtler still is Loti's prose ! 

Nevertheless, I must confess I dislike Loti very 
much in this book. The Carmen-Sylva papers, with 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 275 

all their art, do not seem to me the work of a gentle- 
man. I should not wish to be intimate with the man 
capable of writing them, — or, at least, of printing 
them. In this case, indeed, one must distinguish 
between the artist and the man. The former is a 
wonder and worthy of all highest praise; — the 
latter seems to me a sort of traitor and coward, 
ready to sell anything for the pure egotism of 
announcing himself once a royal guest. Nay, I 
would go further even than that. I do not think 
that on the moral side here there is any difference 
between Loti and that Russian demi-monde who 
published in England the history of her amours with 
the Grand Duke. One feels even that Loti would 
have done as badly if he dared, but that he is re- 
strained by conventions of an order which all but 
those who have nothing to lose must obey. To give 
the world the history of all a woman's little weak- 
nesses — her weaknesses in literature or in speech 
or in health — would surely be thought nasty even 
if the woman were only an ordinary person of the 
middle class ; — I cannot think but that it is even 
worse when the woman happens to be a queen. 
That "Carmen Sylva" made herself a topic of 
public converse, by even writing for American 
magazines, is true. But is it not just for that reason 
that a professional man of letters should have been 
silent about all that he could not praise.'^ No: I fear 
the dulness of Loti's moral sense is in inverse ratio 
to the extraordinary sensibility of his perceptivities. 
Take, for example, page 96 ; and remember that the 
queen and the woman was then very, very sick, — 



276 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

on the verge of insanity or death, — and how is 
it possible to judge of Loti's printed Hnes about 
^'puerilite, — blaspheme d' enfant, — deception inat- 
tendue/' without extreme disgust! The after-revela- 
tion does not mend matters. 

But, leaving the man and his contemptible con- 
ceit out of the question, the book is a treat. The 
coloured pictures of Venice are certainly miracles, 
and one can never forget them. And there are 
beauties at every few pages of extreme rarity. 

By the way, I am so sorry you have not read 
Loti's "Roman d'un Spahi" that I will venture to 
suggest that you ask Hanawa whether he cannot 
lend you a copy. He used to have one, which I gave 
him. — I would like you to read those earlier works 
of Loti, without thinking of the man except as a 
wonderful nervous machinery. — (As I write these 
lines, there comes upon me the vague unutterably 
displeasing after-taste of those Sylva sketches, — 
the sense of sickness and sorrow and all that refine- 
ment and tenderness should guard from view, — 
caged in long primer for public show!) 

By the way, why can we never get out a novel so 
tastily as the French do.f* See how everything takes 
colour and power and beauty from the clear, large 
type, and grand spacing, and broad margin! But 
we are not enough artists in style yet. When we are, 
perhaps we shall set our jewels better. 

Shall I not, in returning Loti, also send Pater.'^ 
Many thanks for the loan of Loti. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 277 

March 9, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I 'm trying to write an 
essay — no, a fantastico-philosophical sketch — 
about Mirrors and Souls. Especially Souls. Which 
causes me to think about Mrs. James's version of 
the "Matsuyama Kagami." 

Who is Mrs. James .^^ I have read her version 
about fifteen times, and every time I read it, it 
affects me more. And I can't help thinking that the 
woman who could thus make the vague Japanese 
incident so beautiful must have a tender and 
beautiful soul, — whoever she is, — whether mis- 
sionary or not. Of course a great deal of the charm 
is helped by the work of the Japanese artist, — I 
suppose the same supernatural being who drew the 
pictures for Urashima. I think more of those pic- 
tures, love them more, than any engraving ever 
printed in UArt or V Illustration. But of course to 
know how magical they really are, — how very ex- 
traordinary they are, — one must have lived in 
Japan a good while. 

'*Dai-Kon" for Dai Konrei, I suppose, — the 
Great Wedding. Their Imperial Majesties have 
given us all — teachers and functionaries — the 
sum of fifty yen, wherewith to make ourselves 
jocund. At the school a new Japanese song was 
sung; and we all bowed to the pictures of their 
Augustnesses, and then there were military salutes, 
and then, in the refectory, we drank the Imperial 
healths. (The ceremony of bowing is much less 
elaborate and graceful than in the ordinary middle 
schools. Only two bows are given, instead of six.) 



278 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Then "Ten-no-Heika-Banzai!" — and such a yell! 

— like a real college-yell in the West. "Ten-no- 
Heika-Banzai ! " — not a yell, the second time, — 
but a clear roar, that did my heart good to hear. I 
wondered what the third cheer would be like. "Ten- 
no-Heika-Banzai ! " A tremendous roar followed and 
suddenly broke into a furious song, — the song of 
the overthrow of the Tokugawa dynasty. "They are 
very, very much excited," said one of the teachers, 

— "and that song is not a good song; it is vulgar!" 
I tried to get the song; but every one to whom I 
applied made unfavourable criticisms about it. 
What the fault was, I can't imagine; but the song 
went on till I thought the roof surged up and down 
at every lilt in it. It was a very quick, swinging, 
devil-may-care sort of a song, — not at all like the 
solemn military measures of to-day. — Then the 
pendulum moved a little more to the right. It 
always does when I hear such singing. I think then, 
the Soul lives ; — while thai remains there is always 
hope. 

To-night a procession of students with e-nor- 
Mous lanterns, — and then an entertainment at 
the school. What it will be like, I don't know. I am 
going to see, — and will tell you all about it to- 
morrow. 

Do you think I am right or wrong about the fol- 
lowing matter? I am asked advice sometimes, and 
I urge those who ask it to follow a course of prac- 
tical science or of medicine, and to leave law, liter- 
ature, and philology alone (unless, in the case that 
they seem to have extraordinary natural talent 



I 

1 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAm 279 

for languages). The other day I got a letter from 
Kyoto, full of English mistakes, from a student who 
wanted to know about taking a philological course; 
— and I wrote him, very strongly advising him to 
study anything else by preference. The utter in- 
capacity of most of the students to turn literary 
and language studies to any high account seems to 
me proof that only rare talents should be even 
allowed the chance to follow such studies. 

Saturday, 10th March: — This morning I re- 
turned home from the college at 2.30, — after a 
night of curious festivities. About 6.00 on Friday 
afternoon the lantern procession left the college. 
There were about 400 students, — each carrying a 
small red lantern, — and to every hundred there 
was a monstrous egg-shaped red lantern, borne at 
the head of the column. The teachers and students 
sang their new song, and other songs through the 
city, and shouted " Banzai." At nine they returned 
to the college, and the festivities began. 

These were chiejfly theatrical, with some recita- 
tion thrown in. Unfortunately the college has no 
real hall, — only an enormous shed used for drilling- 
purposes in wet weather, and the shed is not en- 
closed at the sides. Kneeling on the floor, with the 
north wind on one's back, from 9.00 p. m. till 2.00 
A.M. was trying. Still I find I can outhieel the Jap- 
anese in yofuku. 

A word about the performances. 

The students had arranged a nice little stage, and 
some scenery. The performance opened with sam- 
urai sword-songs, — each young man having the 



280 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

appropriate costume, with a white band about his 
hair, sleeves strung back, etc. This was greatly and 
deservedly applauded. 

Then came a comedy. Some peasants appeared 
from different sides, singing real peasant songs, met, 
greeted each other, and squatted down in the mid- 
dle of an imaginary field. Surveyors come to sur- 
vey. Peasants protest, interfere, attack, — the in- 
struments are slung about, — a great fight occurs; 
— policemen run in, and arrest all parties con- 
cerned. Next scene shows the police court. The 
trial is, of course, made very funny by the answers 
and protests of the peasants. Just after the judge 
has pronounced sentence of two months' imprison- 
ment and costs comes a telegram announcing the 
Imperial Wedding-anniversary. Prisoners are dis- 
charged; and judge, attorneys, police, peasants, 
and surveyors dance a dance of exultation. The 
acting in this piece seemed to me very fine: I was 
able to appreciate the excellence of the peasants' 
parts. 

To not bore you with too many details, I will only 
mention one remarkable series of subjects — what 
subjects? Je vous le donne en mille. — Why Commo- 
dore Perry and the Shogunate. The Commodore 
speaks English, and is surrounded by armed marines. 
Shogun's interpreter asks him, "Why have you 
come to this country .f^" Perry makes appropriate 
answer, explains, — says he has a letter from the 
Great American People. Interpreter reads letter. 
Replies that the letter is too difficult to answer at 
once, — so much time will be required. . . . "Sir, 



m 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 281 

next year come to Nagasaki, and wait there for the 
Shogun's order. Do you know Nagasaki?" Perry 
answers that he knows Nagasaki, but does not 
propose to know the Shogun. He will return to 
await the Emperor s orders. 

Next scene, Ronins, Samurai, aged teacher. 
Aged teacher advises his young men what to do. 
Times are about to change. The duty will be to 
work, — to work earnestly to make Japan great. 

Last scene. Banquet of Ministers in Tokyo. 
One student very cleverly represented Count Ito. 
The Minister of England arises and makes a speech 
about — the Imperial Wedding-festival. The French 
Minister speaks on the same subject in French. 
The German in German. The Chinese in Chinese. 
The Russian Minister, the Spanish, and the Italian, 
do not, however, speak in their own tongues. The 
speeches are humorous ; but more humorous still the 
interpreter's part, by a young man with a magni- 
ficent voice, ringing like a gong, — who imitates, 
with very artistic exaggeration, the solemn musical 
antique method of reading oflScial texts. 

I may also mention a really magnificent Daiko- 
kumai — Kyushu style, quite different from any- 
thing in Izumo, and extremely picturesque in cos- 
tume and movement. Also samurai in raincoats, 
disguised as peasants, singing a very small weird 
humble song in a field, with their swords hidden, — 
waiting for Demons, who are duly slaughtered. 

Well, you would be bored if I told you any more 
on paper in this mere hasty fashion. Suffice to say 
the evening was a very pleasant one for me. I could 



882 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

not understand the dialogue, but I could understand 
the acting. It seemed to me very good indeed, — 
like the acting of Latin students. I do not think 
English students are naturally good actors at all. 
The enormous difference in the acting of French and 
of English boys was strongly impressed on me in 
early days. 

Then I could but remark the extremely strong 
national feeling that characterized the greater part 
of the performance, — the real enthusiasm of the 
young men, — but always with the fond regret for 
old samurai days, — sword-days. Whatever the 
oflScials be, the students certainly have the feeling 
that should be the strength of Japan. 

At a little after 2.00 I fled, — too many students 
urging me to drink sake. I had to drink about fif- 
teen cups, and have a headache as I write. 

Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

"The Pipes of Hamelin" 
Notes — Extracts — (This is not a composite.) 

"There were lived so large rats that cats could 
not treat them as an enemy. They increased in 
great many number, and all cats of town ran away 
to far-distance. Then the rats were free to steal all 
foods which put on a table for gentleman. Town- 
folk appealed to Town-hall, but Hall-men could not 
conquer. 

"Therefore they advertised that if a man would 
have been subdued the adversity of ratSy they shall 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 283 

pay him ten thousand pieces of gold. There come 
encient man. 

"... Town'smen sorrowed and celebrated relig- 
iously that mount to protect their town." (I can't 
quite get the idea here, can you?) 

The following extracts are taken from a composi- 
tion to which I gave 100 marks. There were scarcely 
any errors, but the variations are amusing: — 

"He took a small pipe from his pocket, and put 
it to his mouth. When he piped, all the rats came 
out of their nests and ran through the street. He 
ran after them. The faster they ran, the faster he 
pursued, etc., etc. 

"They said they should give him only fifty pieces 
of gold. He became very angry, because they had 
broken their promise. But he pretended as if he were 
not angry, and said, 'I will show you some magic,' 
and he began to pipe again. Then the Mayor and 
all the people could neither move nor speak. All 
the children came from their schools, etc. 

"The children were never seen again. It became 
a custom in that city to celebrate a festival [Matsuri?] 
once a year for them'' 

(How Japanesy!) 

March 13, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Can't wait for your an- 
swer any longer, — wherefore here goes Pater with 
Loti, for which renewed thanks. The essay of Pater 
on Wordsworth seems to me very beautiful — the 
most beautiful thing ever written on Wordsworth; 
— that on Feuillet's "La Morte," and that on 



284 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Coleridge are also fine. That on Rossetti is very- 
disappointing, indeed, — infinitely inferior to the 
fine paper in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," — a 
case, in short, of iN-appreciation. But you will be 
charmed with the Wordsworth paper. 

I forgot to tell you a funny episode of the stu- 
dents' theatricals. The Minister of France forgot 
his role; but with admirable presence of mind in- 
stantly supplied the gap in memory by reciting very 
rapidly, with appropriate gesture, — 

Maitre Corbeau, sur un arbre perche 
Tenait dans son bee un frontage, etc. 

When I, early in the dawn, do open my door and 
do feel the whiff of the cold, I think of Death. For 
Death is cold. Warmth is a great vibration; the 
less the vibration, the less warmth, the less life, the 
less thinking. In the Sun one would "think like 
h — ," to use a picturesque Americanism, whereas 
in outer space, there would be absolute death. I 
have been told that all vibration ceases at 200 de- 
grees below Zero.^ Then 200 degrees below Zero 
would be Nirvana. Now I love Buddhism; but the 
idea of perfect bliss being only possible at 200 de- 
grees below Zero is too much for my nerves at pre- 
sent. Mild as the winter has been it is too long for 
me. — I have only two metaphysical consolations : 

(1) That thought, as motion, has been proven 
incomparably lower than other modes of appar- 
ently non-sentient force. 

(2) That perfectly extinct Buddhas, like Pragna- 
kuta, return at will and become visible to hear 
the preaching of the Law, — ergo, they have power 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 285 

of motion to escape from 200 degrees below Zero, 
and are under no necessity — to seek existence at 
1,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 

There is some possibihty of a golden mean, appar- 
ently. 

Speaking of motion, another idea has come to me. 
We were talking some time ago about smallness as 
an inherent Japanese quality. What of slowness .^^ 

The complexity of life means much more than 
complexity of structure; it means quantity of 
movement. The greater the motion, the higher the 
life. This is the outset of physiological psychology. 

The motion may be locomotion; but the highest 
motion of life is not, according to present knowledge, 
in locomotion. There is more force in a mathe- 
matical thought than in the flight of an eagle for a 
mile. The highest and swiftest forms of ascertained 
living motion are thoughts. 

Well, it strikes me that something very extraor- 
dinary could be written by a competent philosopher 
on the comparative manifestations of Oriental and 
Occidental movement. I can only think now of a 
few points of comparison, — music (popular), danc- 
ing, — writing, — daily motions of workers. The 
result, however, is quite startling. Think of a 
Scotch reel, an Irish "wind that shakes the barley," 
our dance-tunes, especially the Celtic, and all the 
expressions of our physical life under excitement. 
Then think of the East! 

A letter has just come from you which might 
have been written by Herbert Spencer. You have 
everlastingly and instantly revolutionized my view 



286 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

of the case. — Every point you make is irresistible, 
and very large. I am sorry I cannot disagree with 
you enough to try to say something new; but I can't. 
My view was very narrow, because made by the 
idea of a special class. Yes, — in England there is 
the highest freedom between certain lines. And I 
suppose the bourgeois class in all countries is dread- 
ful enough. In French country towns it is Monsieur 
le Cure, Monsieur le Vicaire, Monsieur le Maire, 
Monsieur I'lntendant, and a few military and civil 
functionaries who are the Law and the State. The 
point about savages is especially fine; for even the 
remotest possible conception of perfect personal 
freedom can never have entered into a savage mind. 

The great beauty of De Coulanges's work, "La 
Cite Antique," is perhaps in illustrating the tyranny 
of antique life. No Greek of the golden Greek 
prime ever enjoyed so much as the faintest sense of 
modern civic freedom. Even the Gods were not free. 

Still, you will feel inclined to grant that where 
the English bourgeois do insist upon "awful order- 
liness" — the orderliness is at least something 
unparalleled for line and weight and gloom, — like 
unto the architecture of Egypt, — something in the 
style of Luxor and Hecatompylis ! 

Ever with best wishes and thanks, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. If you have any old Korean or Chinese 
stamps you don't want betimes, please send two or 
three for a little boy in Martinique, who writes 
wonderful letters to me. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 287 

March 14, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... What you said about 
English freedom ran back Hke a powder-trail, and 
ignited a host of evolutional ideas that are still 
glowing. Of course there ought to be in England 
not only as much but more freedom than in Latin 
countries, since the race is the Mother not only of 
freedom but of its modern ideals, and of all the 
philosophy of liberty of thought. — Perhaps the 
strong conventions which rule certain of its social 
territories act only as necessary curbs to check 
extreme tendencies to freedom of action. 

Do not Bacon and Hobbes give one a very un- 
pleasant sense of being scrutinized, or rather ana- 
lyzed, without sympathy .f^ Especially Bacon. I 
have read little of him, and I can admire him only 
as one admires superior cunning. Indeed Hobbes 
is much the more humane of the two, it seems to me. 
— I know Plato only through extracts, — the de- 
lightful dialogues, the criticism of Lewes, and the 
translation of the "Republic." But all the atmo- 
sphere about him seems to be delightful as the 
mysterious tenderness of a great mild summer's day. 

Of a summer's day I happen to be thinking, be- 
cause in re-reading your paper on pilgrimages, 
there came to me with a vividness, sharpened by the 
peculiar regret which pleasant things always leave 
after them, memories of a day of travel three 
summers ago. We had reached a broad river some- 
where in Hiroshima Ken, and were waiting for a 
ferry-boat. As the boat came, a young pilgrim, all 
in white, joined us and went on board. The women, 



288 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

of whom there were a number, began to say to each 
other, "How pretty he is!" and I looked. Whether 
it was the costume or not, I cannot tell; but it 
seemed to me that I was looking at one of the hand- 
somest boys I had ever seen. He was perhaps 
thirteen years old. Everybody began to question 
him, — was he alone .^ — any parents? — where 
from, etc. He answered laughing; but what the 
answers were I have forgotten: they left me, how- 
ever, with the impression he had no kindred and 
was quite alone. Then those poor women and men, 
— very poor, I think, nearly all peasants, — all 
made up a little subscription for him. I gave him 
ten cents. He took it with a soft laugh; and looked 
straight at me from under the edge of his immense 
white hat; and the long black laughing eyes went 
right into my heart and stayed there till now. Then 
we left him behind. As I looked again at the picture 
in your book, this grey dead day, the dark rosy 
young face reappeared suddenly with its laughing 
eyes, — and the gold sheet of sun on the river's 
breadth, — and the sense of summer wind, — and 
the weird blue ghosts of the hills peaking into the 
empty sky. 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

March 19, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — ... There is a good deal 
of thinking — curious thinking — among these men- 
students. I find the fact of existence is a trouble 
to not a few. "Why am I in the world — Please 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 289 

tell me your views?" — these are the awful questions 
I am sometimes asked. I cannot forbear to cite a 
specimen-composition. It is queer, — is n't it? — 

"For what purpose do men live in this world? 
From the time a man is born he drinks, eats, speaks, 
sees, hears, feels happy or sad, sleeps at night, rises 
in the morning. He is educated, he grows up, he 
marries, he has sons, he becomes old, his hair turns 
white, and he dies. 

"What does he do all his life? His whole occupa- 
tion in this world is only to eat and to drink, to 
sleep and to rise up. Why came he into this world? 
Was it to eat and drink? Was it to sleep? Every 
day he does the same thing; — yet he is not 
tired ! 

"When rewarded, he is glad. When pained, he is 
sad. When he gets rich, he is happy; when he be- 
comes poor, he is very unhappy. Why is he sad or 
glad about his condition? Happiness and sadness 
are only temporary. Why does he study hard? No 
matter how great a scholar he may become, when 
he is dead, there remains nothing of him — only 
bones!" — 

And observe that the author of the above is full 
of humour, life, and noisy fun. He it was who 
personated the Minister of France at the late 
banquet-act. 

The composition brought a memory to me. A 
great crime which terrifies us by the revelation of 
the beast that hides far down, Minotaur-wise, in 
the unknown deeps of the human heart, sometimes 
makes one think like the above composition. All 



290 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

mysteries of pain and sorrow stir up afresh the awful 
three — Why? Whence? Whither? 

Well, there had been a frightful crime committed. 
I slept and forgot the world and all things in the 
dead heavy sleep which men sleep in the tropics. 

Midnight within forty hours of the Equator; and 
there was music that made people get out of their 
beds and cry. 

The music was a serenade; — there were flutes 
and mandolins. 

The flutes had dove-tones; and they purled and 
cooed and sobbed, — and cooed and sobbed and 
purled again ; — and the mandolins, through the 
sweetness of the plaint, throbbed, like a beating of 
hearts. 

The palms held their leaves still to listen. The 
warm wind, the warm sea, slept. Nothing moved 
but the stars and the fireflies. 

And the melody said, more plainly than any 
speech articulate could ever say, — 

"Do you not feel the Night in your heart, — the 
great sob of the joy of it? — 

"And this strange fragrance that recalls the 
past, — the love of all the dead who will never love 
again, — being only dust, — feeding the roots of 
the palms?" 

And I asked, "W^hy that wonderful, inexpress- 
ible, torturing sweetness of music?" 

And they said, — " The murderer of the girl has 
been acquitted. They are consoling his family !^' 
Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 291 

March 24. 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I kept another letter 
back for a few days, because it struck me that the 
musical experience therein recorded — which I 
tried to polish up a little — might' displease you. 
Reading it over again, however, it seems all right 
enough, — and excusable at least as an illustration 
of how extreme artistic sensitiveness, or, if you like 
better, sensuousness, may be conjoined with extra- 
ordinary and savage ferocity. Some recognition 
of this fact alone would help us to comprehend 
certain phenomena of the antique society, which 
yet faintly survive in Latin countries. — And surely 
there is a very great problem behind all such facts; 
which proves that the instinctive religious enmity 
to art was not altogether wrong. 

Here comes the kindest letter from you, with 
some bad news (for I am always very sorry to hear 
you have a cold), — and a delicious little envelope 
full of exotic stamps, — and three numbers of the 
Eclectic which I am not to return but sure to enjoy 
very much. Please don't give yourself more trouble 
about stamps; I have quite enough — -more than 
enough — to delight the little boy in Martinique. 
In New York I got him quite a nice collection of 
African, European, and Turkish stamps, — to- 
gether with some Oriental. But you have sent a 
number that will fill gaps in his collection. Should 
you like Pater, it would please me to have you keep 
him; I have digested him, and will not really have 
any more need of him. 

As yet I can't chat much about the reviews, not 



292 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

having read anything except the paper on the 
Entrance of the Prussians into Paris. One thing 
in that essay sums up the whole French soul, — one 
phrase. I mean the exclamation of the woman who, 
after inspecting the new arrivals, exclaimed, ^'Cest 
degoutant comme Us sont distingues!" How Greek, 
how pagan that terrible intelligence is! I cannot 
help saying terrible : all perceptions which show 
powers superior to human passion are somewhat 
terrible. Then the question comes whether this 
inherent, innate power of sharply defining things 
as they are in themselves — this antique art fac- 
ulty (for it is nothing else) — can have the same 
value for a race as the enthusiasms or beliefs or 
senses of duty which blind men to things as they 
are, and show them only things as they should be. 
— I don't think it would be safe to try to decide so 
complex a question now. It involves the relation 
of the faculties in question to the development of 
the applied sciences. But I can't help venturing 
this, — that I fancy the belief of the Russian peas- 
ant in the destiny of his race and the power of the 
Holy Ghost is at least as strengthening as any 
possible development of pure intelligence could be, 
in a time of national peril. 

It has occurred to me that as the blue stamps are 
rare, you might like especially to send a couple of 
new ones to English friends. As I did not buy them, 
but had them given to me, you will not refuse them, 
I hope. I enclose also an uncancelled American 
stamp: as for cancelled Exposition-stamps, I can 
send you all you wish, — should you need them. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 293 

In the Atlantic you will find a paper entitled "Is 
the Musical Faculty Masculine?" — which should 
interest you. I do not know the writer; but she 
seems to know her Spencer as well as her Schopen- 
hauer, — though quoting only the latter. And pray 
be patient with "Philip and his Wife." The inter- 
est may diminish in the mere story, but the study 
of the woman (Cecilia's) character is really like 
witchcraft — so perfect it seems to me. I thought 
there was only exactly one woman of that partic- 
ular type in the world, and that I knew her; but 
Mrs. Deland must have seen numbers to write the 
sketch. For one character cannot give us a type in 
fiction: every "fictitious" creation of genius is a 
composite of interrelated impressions and experi- 
ences. — Well, every day I find my extraordinary 
people are, after all, only common types; and it 
makes me feel just as I used to feel when obliged to 
recognize that I knew nothing about some subject 
on which I had imagined myself pretty well in- 
formed. — Of reading: I wish I were able to take a 
year's rest from all anxieties, and spend a part of 
each leisure day in reading to you something you 
would like. But that can't be — so I can only offer 
one suggestion — the result of experience, 

I have found that by reading in the common way 
— looking down on the book — I can only read for 
a comparatively brief time without feeling my eyes 
tired. 

But by looking up at a book I can read all day 
without fatigue. 

I just put a high, hard pillow on the floor, lie 



294 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

down on my back or side, and hold the book above 
me. Then my eyes don't get tired at all. The 
physiologist knows that the act of reading of itself 
increases the supply of blood to the eye, — but 
when one bends the head also over a book, the flow 
increases. This, I believe, is the explanation. 

The examinations are on me. I hope to go to 
Kompira on the first. 

Faithfully, with best thanks, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — It is not yet really set- 
tled weather, but there is the same warm lush atmo- 
sphere almost as at the time of your visit last year; 
and the trees are bursting into clouds of pink-and- 
white blossoms. The examinations are over; and 
I have a passport for Kompira which I may or may 
not use. 

There is nothing very new or delightful to tell you. 
Only a fox-story. 

Anciently where the college now stands there was 
a temple; and a fox used to torment the priest of 
that temple by assuming the shape of the acolyte, 
and announcing that the bath was ready, whereupon 
the priest would enter not a bath, as he imagined, 
but a cesspool — to the great diversion of the fox. 
After the temple had disappeared and the college 
was built, the memory of the priest's fox remained. 
Recently the postman who used to deliver letters 
in the neighbourhood of the school complained of 
being deceived by foxes; and kurumaya protested 
they had been hired late at night to take army- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 295 

officers to phantom-villages which disappeared 
about them while they were waiting for the return 
of their fares. 

Be that as it may, the students of the Daizo Koto 
Chugakko three days ago killed a female fox in the 
parade-ground. She had made her den in one of the 
drain-pipes. Five little blind cubs were found in 
it. The boys carried these to their dormitory build- 
ings, and subscribed each a few rin to buy milk for 
them. So we are now cultivating foxes. 

I suppose you must be exceedingly tormented by 
autograph-hunters. I receive a small number of 
letters from them every year, to none of which I 
ever reply, — always stealing the enclosed stamp, 
on the authority of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who told 
us all some years ago that such stamps should be 
confiscated. But yesterday the most accomplished 
autograph-hunter I ever came across wrote me — 
that is, I got his letter. It was wonderfully elegant, 
and stamped with a crest of blue-and-gold. En- 
closed was a most exquisite sheet of paper, in an- 
other envelope, — and on that sheet of paper I was 
to write "a sentiment" and my auto. This sheet of 
paper was placed inside of a carefully addressed 
envelope, — stamped with a 5-cent Japanese stamp ! ! 
There was cunning for you! The letter contained 
only the exact number of necessary words. But 
there was also a printed statement of the history of 
the author's collection of autographs, and a list 
of the names of those who had fallen victims to his 
wiles. And at the head of the list was printed the 
name of — Oliver Wendell Holmes, the champion 



296 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

enemy of all autograph-hunters! The assault was 
masterly! But I am not going to do what Oliver 
Wendell Holmes does, but only what he tells me to 
do. So I confiscated the whole. On trying to ex- 
plain at home the reasons for my conduct, I found 
that my action was judged to be highly immoral. 
In vain I tried to explain. The moral evidence was 
against me. Nevertheless, I know one autograph- 
hunter who "shall be disappointed." 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

April 7, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Just back from Shikoku 
to find your kind letter. I thought of writing you 
on my journey, but as we rushed from Kumamoto 
to Kompira-uchi-machi and back in four days, I re- 
ally could not get a chance to write a decent letter. 
This is partly about the Adventures of Kaji. 

Before he was born, I remember expressing the 
fear in a letter to you that no child of mine could 
ever have the wonderful placidity of the little 
Japanese boy, Kame, whom I compared to a small 
Buddha. But, although in quite a different way, 
my boy turns out to be altogether Japanese in this 
excellent point. He never cries, which you will 
grant is quite extraordinary, — and is never sick, 
and likes travel. His 'adventures gave me proof 
(such as I could never otherwise have obtained) how 
much the Japanese love children, and how much 
deeper and more natural is the common interest of 
the people in children. Perhaps this may be partly 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 297 

though not altogether explained by the custom of 
early marriages, and the Oriental family structure. 
With us the long delay of marriage, and the dis- 
integration of the family, and the difficulty of life 
have all combined, doubtless, to create that absence 
of sentiment which renders it difficult for us to be 
interested at sight in children not our own; and 
which, by reaction perhaps, helps to make Western 
children so much naughtier and more troublesome 
than Oriental children. 

On the train from Kumamoto to Moji we trav- 
elled with a crowd of furious politicians, — some 
of whom had evidently been banqueting. They 
shouted as they talked, and laughed enormously, 
and made a great ado. This interested Kaji. He 
looked at them very curiously, and laughed at 
them; and they stopped talking politics awhile to 
amuse themselves by watching him. So far as I 
could judge, Kaji began his travels by introducing 
peace into the world of politics. 

At Moji he was carried all over the hotel, and 
made much of. We took a steamer the same night, 
— an abominable steamer (don't forget the name!), 
the Yodogawa Maru. No first-class cabin, — but 
a large chu-to: all together on the floor. There were 
perhaps twenty others with us, — including a num- 
ber of very sweet women. At least I thought them 
very sweet, — partly because they were young, 
pretty, and gentle, but much more because they 
begged for a loan of Kaji. He played with them all, 
and was petted very much. But he showed much 
more partiality for the men (I pray the Gods he 



298 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

may always have this disposition : it would save him 
a universe of trouble) ; and the men carried him all 
over the ship, and the Captain descended from his 
bridge to play with him. Then one old man pro- 
duced the portrait of his granddaughter, a little 
girl whom he said looked much like Kaji; and the 
resemblance was really striking. Another passenger 
gave Kaji a small book, — to read as soon as he 
should be able; and little baskets of oranges, boxes 
of suchi and cakes were given us by various persons. 
Thus, as the "grub" furnished by the steamer was 
really uneatable, Kaji supplied us with provisions. 
Kaji's grandmother, who carried him on her back 
over most of the distance, insisted upon certain 
observances. There was a wonderful display of 
phosphorescence that night: the ripples were liter- 
ally created with fire, — a fire quite as bright as 
candlelight, — and at the bows of the steamer there 
was a pyrotechnic blazing and sputtering bright 
enough to read small print by. Kaji liked the sight, 
but was not allowed to look long at it : there is some 
ghostly idea connected with these sea-lights which 
I could not fully learn. (You know the French 
phrase, la mer lampe.) Well, the sea really did 
"lamp" that night: I never saw a brighter phos- 
phorescence in the tropics. Even to throw a cigar- 
butt into the water made a flashing like a fire- 
cracker. A tug (Ko-joki) passed us, surrounded by 
what seemed like a vast playing of Catharine- 
wheels. — And Kaji also is not yet suffered to look 
much into a looking-glass; for another ghostly 
reason which I shall some day tell you about. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 299 

Setsu translated for me some conversation that 
took place in the cabin during my wanderings on 
deck, over cases of oil of Batoum. If true as to fact, 
it would seem that I am far more popular with the 
Kumamoto students than I had imagined; for some 
very extraordinary statements were made as to 
their feeling towards me by a Kumamoto official on 
board. Recently, however, the students have been 
coming very much closer to me, taking walks with 
me, and telling me wonderful things, — so it may 
be true. 

At Tadotsu, the crew and passengers all said good- 
bye to Kaji. The women said, *'We shall be lone- 
some now." Kaji laughed at them till their faces 
passed out of sight. 

The hotel at Tadotsu called the Hanabishi is 
very, very pretty, — and rather old. The oshiire 
were wonderful; — the fukuro-to-dana (?) or jibu- 
Tcuro were marvels; the whole place would have 
delighted Morse unspeakably. And nowhere else 
in all Japan did I ever eat such fried fish ! — just out 
of the sea. — You know Tadotsu, — : so I need not 
describe it. Except for the modern structures, the 
town is delightful. Setsu said, "I saw this place 
before in a dream;" I said, "That is because your 
ancestors visited it so often." — Kaji was pleased 
by the shops, and we bought absurd little toys for 
him. 

But the Kompira-uchi-machi was a greater sur- 
prise than Tadotsu. What a delicious town, — 
what survivals! It was just the day to see such 
things, — a vast warm bath of blue light, — cher- 



300 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

ries and peaches in bloom, — long vistas through 
hazy bursts of pink-and-vvhite blossom, — all di- 
vinely clear. And oh, oh, oh ! the queer dear moun- 
tain-climbing city, — itself a pilgrim, all robed in 
blue-and-white, and shadowed and hatted with un- 
speakable tiling, and supporting itself with staffs 
of bamboo, as it zigzags, singing, up to the clouds ! 
Oh for a photographer that knew his business! 
— for an artist with a soul to image what cannot 
be described at all in words ! Even Loti could not 
do it. Neither Nara nor Kitzuki nor anything 
in Kyoto nor anything in Kamakura can ever com- 
pare with the " Saka." The colours, — the shad- 
owings, — the flutterings of drapery, the riddles of 
the shops, the look-down over the magical village 
to the grand blue silhouette of Sannki-Fuji! I saw 
on the tablets the name of "B. H. Chamberlain, 
English," — and I wished so much he were beside 
me, that I might say those things which moments 
inspire but which cannot be written or remembered. 

Kaji's grandmother, at the bottom of the steps, 
took off her zori, and began the ascent very lightly, 
with the child on her back. I protested; but Setsu 
said, "No, that is mother's way: she thinks it wrong 
to approach a holy place with footgear." People 
stopped her to look at Kaji and ask questions. I was 
taken for an Ainoko by some, — Kaji seems to pass 
for a Japanese very well. In parts of Oki also I was 
said to be an Ainoko. 

We made a present to the temple, following the 
example of "B. H. Chamberlain, English;" and 
the miko danced for us. They were two very pretty 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 301 

girls, — not painted up and powdered like the Nara 
virgins, but looking like the sisters of the daughter 
of the Dragon-King in the Urashima pictures. Kaji 
opened his eyes more widely, and laughed, and made 
one of the miko smile, even during her solemn dance. 
After the dance he became an object of attention. 
Kaji seemed to like the miko better than any other 
strangers of the fair sex ; — for with this exception 
his friendships are especially masculine. I admired 
his taste in the case of the miko. Besides they were 
just at the lovable period between girlhood and 
womanhood, when children are very strongly sym- 
pathized with. 

Our hotel was the Toraya. You know there are 
two figures of tigers there, said to have been made 
by Hidari Jiugoro, and caged in wire nets. (I sus- 
pect they are relics of the Buddhist days of Kom- 
pira.) And upstairs I found myself looking out upon 
the street through the legs of another tiger. There 
are more than one hundred rooms, and a very 
beautiful garden. What most impressed me was the 
use of a most beautiful sky-blue plaster for the walls 
of the back part of the buildings and corridors lead- 
ing to the chozuba. — A lot of geisha came and sat 
down on the gallery to play with Kaji. I hope that 
will be Kaji's last acquaintance with geisha, — al- 
though they behaved very prettily with him. 

I passed over the wonderful bridge, of course; and 
down the avenue of stone lanterns ; and we ascended 
the colossal toro, and saw the black skillets in which 
two go of tomoshi-abura are burned every night. 
But we did not take Kaji upstairs. It would have 



302 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

been dangerous. — I observed the curious wind- 
bells of bronze, hung at the corners of the eaves; 
the very broad tongue has almost the figure of an 
inverted fleur-de-lys. 

I returned by a much finer boat, — the Odagawa 
Maru, very comfortable, with a good table. There 
were many children; and Kaji won many successes. 
Meanwhile I met one of your old pupils, — a young 
naval surgeon named Oki, now stationed at Kure, 
with a prospect of three years' study in Germany. 
A fine, long-limbed young fellow, with heavy eye- 
brows, and a love of innocent mischief. We talked 
a good deal together. I also met the new director 
of the Yamaguchi Higher Middle School — pleas- 
ant, cautious, and inquisitively official : there I saw 
only the surface. Oki seems to me a fine boy. He 
has just the necessary amount of conceit to help 
him through the surf of life; and exactly the dis- 
position that will make friends for him among the 
students of Munich, where he hopes to go. 

We were delayed about six hours by a perfectly 
black night — the hand could not be seen before 
the face. Kaji gave no trouble at all. 

But there are so many risks for a child in travel 
that I did not feel quite easy till we got home last 
night. I send a picture of Kaji. His last friendship 
on the railroad was with a grim-looking government 
surveyor, whose hand he seized from behind, while 
the man was looking out of the window. 

(Finis first chapter of the Adventures of Kaji.) 

What, after all, is the charm of Kompira's city.'* 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 303 

Not certainly in any one particular thing. It is the 
result of a great combination of very simple things 
under a divine sky. This grey day it would look 
common enough. Another day it would look like 
the ascent, through blue light and sungold, into the 
phantom city of the Gokuraku, and the gardens 
where souls like Kaji's are born out of the lotus- 
flowers, and fed with ambrosia by miko having 
wings. Truly the whole place is a work of Art, — 
with well-chosen Nature for its living pedestal, or 
canvas. 
And that's all about my travels. . . . 
Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Since last writing you 
I have copied and mailed the index, corrected the 
remaining few hundred plate-proofs, worked over 
the preface (of which I sent you a raw duplicate), 
and written a metaphysical article on Japanese 
mirrors. So that I have been working pretty hard. 
Many thanks for the Eclectics. The second paper 
by the recorder of that wonderful phrase C'est 
degoutant comme Us sont distingues — the paper 
on the Commune in 1871 — strikes me as the most 
remarkable contribution in the three. That man, 
whoever he be, is a very great, large, vivid, com- 
prehensive, sympathetic man. What a book he 
could make! The terrible realism of that story 
about the girl is something one will never forget. 
That is a master-artist. He has a gift like Froude. 

Indeed I am delighted to sympathize with you 



304 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

about Froude's "Short Essays on Great Subjects." 
They seem to me the most perfect work of the kind 
ever done in the English language; the "Spanish 
Story of the Armada" is in the same vein and of the 
same fibre; and I am looking forward with eagerness 
to his coming volume of sketches relating to the 
great seamen of the seventeenth century, — the 
Drakes, Hawkinses, etc. It is many years since I 
read those essays. I have most vivid recollection 
of the papers relating to Roman society in the pe- 
riod of the Decadence (including that marvellous 
study of the impostor Alexander) ; — then I can 
always see the figure of that terrible fighting Eng- 
lish bishop, — Le Despenser, wasn't it.^ — who set- 
tled the peasant revolt by attacking the whole host 
all by himself {Sicut aper frendens dentibus); — and 
last, but not least, the weird humour haunts me of 
that dream about the Railway Station and Judg- 
ment of Souls. Perhaps the fate of Western races 
is indeed to be decided at last by their treatment 
of the animal world — though this is by no means 
easy to show. Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. I have been trying to shoot with a bow. You 
know the shape of the Japanese bow is peculiar, 
and it is not held as our bows are. It is held near the 
bottom, and is hard to use. The bottom part is 
wider than the top, and the thing is tremendously 
long. I think mine is fully nine feet. My father-in- 
law, trained to arms in his youth, is expert with it. 
I can scarcely do anything with it; but he is teaching 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 305 

me. The target the first day was a metal wash- 
basin, covered with painted paper. His first arrow, 
though blunt, whistled through the basin and struck 
halfway through the fence. I am rather afraid of 
the thing, — for it would kill a man at once. I 
would feel safer shooting with a revolver, which I 
know how to manage. But I shall try. 

May 10, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I think you are quite 
right not to care about work in MS., — indeed, I 
made the proposal rather through a sense of friendly 
duty than with any idea that it could be hailed 
"with joy and gladness." There is no colour in MS., 
and symmetry is concealed. It is like trying to read 
through loose tissue paper, which lumps over the 
page and has to be held down with the fingers. . . . 

That is delightful news about your new librarian. 
You are really very pleasantly fixed. I am only 
legitimately jealous — rejoicing in all your comforts; 
but if you only knew what four years mean (or at 
least three), separated from every intelligent being 
in the Western sense, you would experience the 
grim joy of Jeremy Taylor, who held that one of 
the greatest delights of heaven consisted in the in- 
spection of the torments of the damned. (By the 
way, I think I am wrong — that it was Jonathan 
Edwards.) Well, whoever it was, I don't think he 
meant that the S. S. are to take any malicious joy 
in the spectacle, but only that their heaven would 
become quite unbearably monotonous if they did n't 
have an occasional chance to compare StatusES 



306 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

(there 's an English plural for you !) — My whole 
trouble here has been the work of one man. He re- 
presents (I think) what is called the missionary in- 
fluence in the school. Somehow or other, he has the 

ear of K . K is now trying to get him into 

the University as assistant teacher or something — 
preparatory department. But whether this is only 
a plan for getting rid of him or not, I cannot be sure. 
My admirer's specialty is English literature — so I 
suppose I must be in his way. He has a very good 
— even wonderful collection of books on the subject 
(I don't know how he could afford them), and a 
book-clerk's knowledge of titles and prices. When 
I have said that, I have said all. He cannot write 
ten lines of a letter without a mistake, and he can- 
not understand the "Lady of the Lake." But he 
teaches Bacon's Essays, Burke's Speeches, Car- 
lyle, and the Devil knows what. He also publishes 
texts. A foreign teacher can only be asked about 
ten questions a day — there is so little time. But 
at the end of a year it figures up. Then comes out 
the original editing. The youngest class but one — 
a preparatory class in which no boy can write a 
decent composition — was the other day being 
taught by this wonderful genius — Je vous le donne 
en mille! — the structure and history of the English 
sonnet (!) out of "Barnes's philological grammar." 
It is rather funny that my friend imagines himself 

such a philologist that he represented to K the 

very inefficient philological methods of the Univers- 
ity. K told him to write a letter to the Min- 
ister of Education on the subject — which I have 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN^ 807 

no doubt he did. I am very kind to the horrid Httle 
beast. But my nerves are strained, — as I can't 
pretend to understand what I know he is doing. 
I pray the Gods, K will get him into the Uni- 
versity, or anywhere out of this. In the University 
I think he would hang himself quick enough. He 
has been in the Doshisha, — but they don't seem 
to have appreciated him there. — And yet, there 
might be worse than he in our school. He is not 
of the rude rough sort — but of the small, shabby- 
genteel, spiteful kind; one of the kind that hates 
everything Japanese, and everything foreign except 
missionaries, who seem to be of use to him. My 
greatest suffering are the lectures on Milton, Nicho- 
las Breton (!), Donne, Painter's "Palace of Pleas- 
ure," and various other known and unknown au- 
thors which he inflicts upon me. He is scandalized 
at my ignorance "of those Elizabethan lyrists, 
edited by Bullen." Can you imagine! 

How many pages of scandal! Still I must howl 
to somebody who can appreciate the anguish! No 
Japanese could understand it. — Now about that 
poetry. 

No, I never spoke much about the decadents, I 
don't understand their work — only their princi- 
ples. It is Manet in words, they say. It is impres- 
sionism. Some people see much in it. I can't. The 
principle must be wrong. Psychology ought to 
prove it. The values and colours of words differ 
in all minds — as tabulated statements of word- 
sensations collected in the universities and schools 
have shown. The effect of a poem like that you sent 



308 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

me can only be anything to the writer's psycho- 
logical cousin, — provided the cousin has had pre- 
cisely the same experiences in mental preparation. 
I can imagine a tolerably successful application of 
the principle, — but the medium would have to be 
the language of the greatest (not the great) majority. 
Could a writer apply the thing to the vulgar idiom 
of the people — to what everybody understands 
(except the highly refined), I think astonishments 
of beauty and power might result. There are 
obvious obstacles, however. As the decadents now 
are, their "art" seems to me a sort of alchemy in 
verse, — totally false, with just enough glints of 
reality — micaceous shimmerings — to suggest im- 
aginations of ghostly gold. I can't understand that 
thing at all. It pains my head, and hurts my soul. 
The only really fine line in it, — 

— meurtries 
De la langueur goutee a ce mal d'etre deux — 

(you will acknowledge a sensual but weird beauty 
in that!) is not original. I have read it before, 
though I can't tell where. I think it was better in 
the other form — to my taste the word goutee spoils 
the charm. The beauty is really in that psychic 
truth of the desire to melt into another being — the 
fable of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. 

Huxley says, "No man can understand Shake- 
speare till he becomes old." I think he might have 
said the same about the old Greek fables. I now 
only, turning grey, seem to understand them. I 
know Medusa, the beautiful woman who freezes 
the hearts and souls of rich men into eternal stone. 



^ 




THE MOUNTAIN OF SKULLS 

From a sketch by Hearn 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 309 

And I have seen the Sphinx. Alkestis I have also 
seen, and Admetus, and glorious Herakles, and the 
Witch whose wine makes beasts of men, — and the 
Sirens singing, with white bones bleaching under 
their woman's breasts, — and Orpheus to whom the 
trees bowed down, who sought hell for a shadow and 
lost it: all these have been with me. But how new 
they now are ! — how real — how deep — how eter- 
nal! 

I can't let you get out of hototogisu and uguisu in 
that most unfair way, — because I insist that the 
hototogisu is not a cuckoo, and that the uguisu is 
not a nightingale. And I have become so accustomed 
to say two kuruma, four kuruma?/a, that it seems 
monstrous to me anybody should put an *'s" to 
them. If you imagine that I have been writing 
Japanese words for four years without ever using 
a plural, you will believe me. It is a thing one gets 
used to, and fond of, — like squatting. 

But it is late, and I am tired aiofully. With best 
wishes and thanks for the decadantissimum poema, 
which I shall try to read once more before returning. 
Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

May 16, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your letter went right 
into that much bescratched thing called my soul. 
I am getting rather hungry myself for the open 
ports. To live in a Japanese fishing-village in Oki, 
or Yu-Notsu, or a certain little islet I know where 
all the people still wear queues and the terakoya 



310 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

still exist might be preferable. But that would 
entail certain severe discomforts, — especially as 
my folks do not share my liking for out-of-the-way 
nooks and corners. Yes, I imagine one could be 
happy in the open ports. As you say, there are 
genuine men and women there. And they are the 
most beautiful cities in Japan. Kobe ! — what a 
flood of light, with the amethyst hills massing into 
it; — what dreamy luminosity over Yokohama bay, 
w^ith the ghost of Fuji floating over all ! — what 
delicious quaintness and queerness and windy glory 
over Nagasaki! But how live there! One must be 
right rich, or a business man, or — a journalist.^ ? I 
have dreams. Beale has been suggesting future 
possibilities. I should be better off, "driving a 
quill," than teaching under these officials. 

Some splendid boys will go to Tokyo this summer, 
but I suppose as you no longer teach you are not 
likely to see them. Still, I would like to mention 
one name. Yasukochi Asakichi, whom I have taught 
for three years, is the finest Japanese student I ever 
met. Though a heimin, he is patronized by the 
lord of Fukuoka, and will probably be sent abroad. 
He studies law, I am sorry to say, but he is right, 
— having a special high talent for it. He is ex- 
traordinarily solid in character, — massively, not 
minutely practical, — straight, large, thorough, and 
I think will become a great man. He is not only 
first in English, but easily first also in everything 
he studies, — and, quite unlike the average stu- 
dent, regards his teachers only as helps to his own 
unaided study — instead of as bottles of knowledge 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 311 

to be emptied slowly upon lazy sponges. — A com- 
rade, Kawafuchi, is nearly as clever, though less 
solid. What a pity, however, that the really fine 
heads take always to law. The science-classes show 
no such young men: they are mediocre in the ex- 
treme. 

I feel a great temptation this summer to take a 
run by myself to Hakodate, and plunge into the 
little hotel kept by Carey the mulatto there. (You 
may remember I lived at his house in Yokohama: 
he was kind, and a good man to the bones of him.) 
Then I could bathe once more in an atmosphere of 
sailors and sealers and mates and masters of small 
craft — in a salty medium full of water-dogs. It 
would be healthy for me, refreshing: I like rough 
men who don't get too drunk, and I get along with 
them first-rate. . . . 

Dear Chamberlain, — What do you think 
about the idea of getting up a new "Japanese Fairy 
Tale Series".^ I have quite a number of tales splen- 
didly adapted to weird illustrations. Is there money 
in such a thing. '^ 

Do you know this poem? 

BRAHMA 

I am the mote in the sunbeam; and I am 
the burning sun: 
"Rest here," I whisper the atom; — I say 
to the orb, "Roll on!" 

I am the blush of the morning, and I am 

the evening breeze: 
I am the leaf's low murmur, — the swell 

of the terrible seas. 



S12 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

I am the vine and the vineyard, — grapes, 
winepress, and must, and wine, — 

The guest, the host, the traveller, — the goblet 
of crystal fine; — 

I am the net, the fowler, the bird and its 

frightened cry; — 
The mirror, the form reflected, — the sound 

and its echo, I; — 

I am the breath of the flute; — I am 

the mind of man, — 
Gold's glitter, the light of sunrise, — and the 

sea-pearl's lustre wan, — 

The Rose, her poet-nightingale, — the songs 

from his throat that rise. 
The flint, the spark, the taper, — the moth 

that about it flies; — 

The lover's passionate pleading, — the maiden's 

whispered fear, — 
The warrior, the blade that smites him, — his 

mother's heart- wrung tear; 

I am both Good and Evil, — the deed, and 

the deed's intent, — 
Temptation, victim, sinner, crime, pardon 

and punishment; — 

I am what was, is, will be, — creation's 

ascent and fall, — 
The link, the chain of existence, — beginning 

and end of all ! 

(RiTTER, from Djellalleddin Rumi.) 

I have studied this poem for years, and every time 
I read it, — the grander it seems. To-day I found 
the old copy I made of it in 1879 among some loose 
papers. 

There isn't anything new to tell you that you 
could care about. Faithfully, 

25th May, 1894. LaFCADIO HeARN. 

I wish it were 1994, — don't you? (over) 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 313 

I forgot to tell you : — 

To-day I spent an hour in reading over part of 
the notes taken on my first arrival, and during the 
first six months of 1890. Result, I asked myself: 
"How came you to go mad? — absolutely mad?'* 
It was the same kind of madness as the first love 
of a boy. 

I find I described horrible places as gardens of 
paradise, and horrid people as angels and divinities. 
How happy I must have been without knowing it! 
There are all my illusions facing me, — on faded 
yellow paper. I feel my face tingle as I study some 
of them. Happily I had the judgment not to print 
many lines from them. 

But — I ask myself — am I the only fool in the 
world? Or was I a fool at all? Or is everybody, 
however wise, at first deluded more or less by un- 
familiar conditions when these are agreeable, the 
idea always being the son of the wish? 

Perhaps I was right in one way. For that moment 
Japan was really for me what I thought it. To the 
child the world is blue and green; to the old man 
grey — both are right. 

So with all things. Relations alone exist. The 
writer's danger is that of describing his own, as if 
they were common or permanent. Perhaps the man 
who comes to Japan full of hate for all things Ori- 
ental may get nearer to truth at once — though, of 
course, he will also make a kindred mistake. 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



314 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

June 4, 1894. ' 

Dear Chamberlain, — . . . The poem of 
Brahma (much finer than Emerson's) I first saw 
in Longfellow's "Poems of Places," credited, as a 
translation from Rumi to Ritter. Ritter, I believe, 
is a German; for I could not get anything Oriental 
by Ritter in English — they were all German books. 
Perhaps Longfellow himself tried his hand at the 
versification. I think the contradiction in the first 
stanza — which might be improved, perhaps — is on 
the whole pardonable considering the tremendous 
antitheses and contradictions of the whole thing. 
It is the Bhagavad-Gita condensed; and I suppose 
the magnificence of the Saddharuma-Pundarika is 
due to the same mighty source. Of translations, 
I liked Burnouf's much the best. When I read such 
things I am angry with my own soul that I cannot 
believe, — so cyclonic is the sublimity of the verses. 
They create, as I think no other verses do, what 
Clifford calls "cosmic emotion." So some verses of 
the Bible do, — but only because of the changes 
of meaning caused in them by the expansion of 
knowledge to-day: — 

"They shall perish, but thou shalt remain: yea, 
all of them shall wax old as a garment. And as a 
vesture thou shalt change them and they shall be 
changed." 

The Hebrew poet's world was small. But to-day 
— to-day when the application of evolution to 
astronomy confirms the Orient faith that the cosmos 
itself appears and vanishes with the night and day 
of Brahma, — all being but the shadows of the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 315 

dream of a God, — how tremendous the old psalm 
becomes! . . . 

Every once in a while, some delightful, earnest, 
sweet-souled man — a Tempo — comes down here 
and lectures. He tells the boys of their relation to 
the country's future. He reminds them of their 
ancestors. He speaks to them of loyalty and honour. 
He laments the decay of the ancient spirit, and the 
demoralizing influence of Western manners and 
Western religion and Western business methods. 
And as the boys are good, their hearts get full, and 
something brightens their eyes in spite of the fash- 
ion of impassiveness. — But what are their thoughts 
after? 

A striking example was afforded me the other 
day, by a conversation with the remarkable student 
I told you of before, — Yasukochi Asakichi. I will 
try to reproduce it thus: — 

"Sir! What was your opinion of the old-fashioned 
Japanese when you came first to Japan? Please to 
be quite frank with me." 

"You mean old men like Akizuki-San?" 

"Yes." 

"Why, I thought them divine, — Kami-Sama; 
and I think them more divine now that I have seen 
the new generation." 

"Akizuki is a type of the ideal old samurai. But 
as a foreigner you must have perceived faults." 

"How, faults?" 

"From your Western standpoint." 

"My Western standpoint is philosophical and 
ethical. A people's perfection means their perfect 



316 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

fitness for the particular form of society to which 
they belong. Judging from such a standpoint the 
man of the Akizuki type was more perfect than any 
Western type I have ever met. Ethically, I could 
say the same." 

"But in a Society of the Western type, could such 
men play a great part.^^" 

"By their unaided exertions.'^" 

"Yes." 

"No: they have no business capacity, and no 
faculty for certain combinations." 

"That is true. And in what did their goodness 
seem to consist to you.f^" 

" In honour, loyalty, courtesy, — V^n supreme self- 
control, '+— in unselfishness, — in consideration of the 
(rights of others j — in readiness to sacrifice self." 

"That also is true. But in Western life are these 
qualities sufficient to command success .f^" 

"No." 

"And the Oriental system of morals cultivated 
these; and the result of that cultivation was to sup- 
press the individual for the sake of the whole.f^" 

"Yes." 

"On the other hand, the Western form of society 
develops the individual by encouraging selfishness 
— competition, struggle for gain — and all that?" 

"Yes." 

"And Japan, in order to keep her place among 
nations, must do business and carry on industry 
and commerce in the Western manner .f^" 

"Perhaps." 

"I do not think there is a perhaps. There is only 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 317 

a must. We must have manufactures, commerce, 
banks, stock-companies — we must do things in the 
Western way, since our future must be industrial 
and commercial. If we should try to do things in 
the old way, we should always remain poor and 
feeble. We should also get the worst in every com- 
mercial transaction." 

"Yes." 

"Well, how can we do any business, — or attempt 
any enterprise, — or establish any large system, — 
or carry on any competition, — or do anything on 
a large scale, — if we live by the old morality .f*" 

"Why?" 

"Because if we can do something advantageous 
to ourselves or our interests only by hurting some 
one else, we cannot do that according to the old 
morality." 

"Yes." 

"But to do business in a Western way we must 
not be checked by any such scruples; the man who 
hesitates to obtain an advantage simply because he 
knows some one else will be injured by it, will fail." 

"Not always." 

"It must be the general rule when there are no 
checks upon competition. The cleverest and strong- 
est succeed; the weak and foolish fail: it is the 
natural law — the struggle for life. Is Western 
competition based upon love of one's fellow man.^^" 

"No." 

"Sir, the truth is that no matter how good the 
old morality was, we cannot follow any such moral 
law and preserve our national independence and 



318 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

achieve any progress. We must try to substitute 
law for morality." 

"It is a bad substitute." 

"It is not a bad substitute in England. Besides, 
at last, men through the influence of law will learn 
to be moral by reason, not by emotion. We must 
forsake our Past {?)" 

And I could say nothing. ... 

And now I have said so many horrid things about 
officials that it is high time to say something nice 
about men who are not officials. Some years ago 
I met in Tokyo a gentleman named Takagi, then 
suffering from brain-trouble of some sort, — very 
charming and gentle. I forgot all about him until 
the other week when he came to Kumamoto. He 
had been in the Educational Department, but was 
not happy there, and being a good chemist got 
employed as head man in the Sumitomo Camphor 
Refinery of Kobe. The merchants liked him, took 
him all round the world, and made him quite happy. 
His visit did me good in an unsuspected way; for 
he had been the schoolmate of some not inclined 
to view me favourably, and his opinion changed the 
course of events. I passed some pleasant days with 
him. He possesses, what is rare in Japan, a keen 
sense of humour, sharpened by foreign experience. 
I was much amused by his observations about for- 
eign countries. Of the French manner of life he 
said, "They are the most economical of people: 
they are careful not to spend their own money; but 
they possess an infinite art in making other people 
spend money." I asked him about the Chinese in 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN ^9 

Kobe, as merchants. "There are too many Chinese, 
but few merchants in Kobe. The remainder are 
chiefly receivers of stolen goods, and dangerous 
characters." Takagi has the most remarkable boy 
I have seen; and I think of using the head (photo- 
graph) in a future book. I want to send you a copy 
to look at: you will agree it is fine. I am to spend 
some days in Kobe with him. He is a good amateur 
photographer, and is taking photographs of queer 
things for me. I think a more charming man it 
would be hard to find. He could never have suc- 
ceeded in ofiicial life, as he has the awful habits of 
saying what he thinks, and being in earnest — two 
vices intolerable to the existing bureaucracy. As a 
letter-writer he is far superior to any Japanese I 
know — not simply because he makes no mistakes, 
but because he writes as honestly as an English- 
man, with a very delicate, humorous way of expres- 
sion peculiar to himself — always original. Should 
you ever have occasion to meet him, you would find 
him interesting in no small degree. Hinton used to 
be a great admirer of his — and I believe tried hard 
to get his services once, but without success. 

The other day some Japanese books were brought 
me to look at. On them was the name of the father 
of a student now at the University. The poor old 
man could only pay his son's expenses by selling his 
library, — a wonderful library. It is all scattered now. 
Nothing could be more touching than the history of 
the sacrifices being made every day in every part 
of Japan for the education of sons and daughters: 
— the unwritten goodness is the most wonderful. 



320 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

I am disappointed to hear you made nothing by 
those delicious Fairy -Tales. I thought there was 
a fortune in them. Sets must have been sold by 
thousands. A small set I could certainly make; 
but I want you to read my book first. And my 
head is full of dreams. I dream of — 

(1) "The Story of a Soul," — to be illustrated 
with weird, but not ugly, pictures of the Meido, — 
River of the Three Roads, River of Tears, Sami 
Kawara, etc. 

(2) " (New) Japanese Fairy-Tales " — The Foun- 
tain of Youth — The Haunted Temple — The 
Artist of Cats — The Waiting Stone — The Test of 
Courage — The Story of an Ihai — The Ise o-fuda 
— The Old Woman and the Oni — Jizo and the 
wicked Hotel-keeper, etc., etc., etc. 

(3) "Western Science and Eastern Faith." A 
comparison of results in the form of an address. 
Shall I, or shall I not try? 

And again I sometimes feel like despairing of 
writing to any purpose — feel like quitting every- 
thing I like, and leaving the ground fallow for some 
years. 

I thank you in advance for the works you are so 
kindly lending. Anything genuine from the old 
Jesuits I should like to see — except, of course, such 
hideous trash as " Paul Anjiro." Perhaps I can make 
a fine Kumamoto chapter. If I can't, I shall accu- 
mulate notes, and go to Manila for a season later 
on — where I can get the emotions I want. 

My boy has lost almost every possible trace of 
Japanese origin. Even the eyelids have much 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 321 

changed. His hair has become a bright curly brown- 
chestnut: his features are all different: he is get- 
ting to be a naughty naughty English child — ex- 
travagantly English. Oh! what a devil of a time 
I shall have with him ! I 'm sure he won't be very 
submissive, after all. I'll have to send him to a 
land of sterner discipline, later on. For the moment 
only, good-bye, — I'll finish another letter to you 
soon. 

Most gratefully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

June 10, 1894. 

Further Adventures and States of Mind 

Dear Chamberlain, — To-day I could not stand 
it any longer. I dismissed my class abruptly for the 
first time, and went home to write a letter of re- 
signation. After having written it, I tore it up, and 
went, for the first time in my life, to the house of 
Sakurai (he has a brother professor in the Univers- 
ity), — the head-master. He is civilized, having 
been educated in France; and I felt some confidence 
in him, because he allows no one to be familiar with 
him. I could not find him in his house: he was at 
an archery club. I sat down, or knelt down, in the 
archery shed, and looked at all those Oriental im- 
passive faces, and my courage began to ooze away. 
Perhaps you don't know what it is to want to say 
something very private, and find your man for 
the time being part of a public in nowise inter- 
ested in you — rather the reverse. But I stuck it 
out, saying now or never; and after the archery 



Sn LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

asked to see the gentleman privately. Happily no 
one else understands French. I went to his house, 
and conversed with him very guardedly, — men- 
tioning no names, but simply giving my three years' 
experience of discomfort. He smiled and seemed 
to understand, thought a little, became suddenly 
impassive, and said: — *'You are generally liked, 
— they are not polite and courteous; and besides 
Japanese are cold. You have no friend, I know; 
but I am your well-wisher, and I keep your con- 
fidence. If there be anything very disagreeable, 
come to me and tell me frankly, and I'll settle it as 
well as I can. As for your contract, that oversight 
was only due to your being so long here, that we 
forgot to ask you. When the director comes back, 
we settle that." I said: "I am no longer interested 
in staying; I am only interested in being able to go 
away on good terms." — I think he understands 
exactly what I refer to, and I think he will hold his 
peace to all but the director. The director dislikes 
the person I am troubled by, and there may be found 
a way to get rid of him. But the head-master, who 
is a perfect gentleman, would not like me even to 
think he understood; and I believe we talked in 
riddles all the time. However, I have more courage 
now to finish the three weeks left. 

Yet Lowell says the Japanese have no individu- 
ality! I wish he had to teach here for a year, and 
he would discover some of the most extraordinary 
individuality he ever saw. There are eccentrics and 
personalities among the Japanese as with us: only, 
they show less quickly on the surface. No man can 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 323 

make a sweeping general statement about Japanese 
character in a negative sense, without finding out 
his mistake later. It is only by degrees, however, 
that one finds out they have just as much difference 
among them as any Orientals. But physiologically 
and conventionally these are less perceptible at first 
sight. 

Won't you think me a crank, writing all this 
stuff. f^ But it is part of the record of a disillusioned \( ^ 
enthusiast. You remember my first letters from M 
Izumo. Quantum mutatus ah illol The iron — 
Japanese iron — has entered into my soul — 

And thro' the body of the Knight 
He made cauld iron gae, gae. 
He made cauld iron gae! 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. By the way, let me send you a typical compo- 
sition : — 

Subject: — "Flowing Water" 

" The water of a river is not the same clear water 
that gushed from the source in the mountain. It 
becomes dark and muddy as it flows on, and never 
turns clear again. So with the life of a man. The 
sun always rises and sets the same : in the same way 
the year always comes and goes. But man grows 
older always, and never can become young again. 
One of us who was never sick till last winter now 
sleeps in a grave: one who was singing and laugh- 
ing but a few days ago, has gone back to whence 
he came. One is not long wept or honoured, but 



S24 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

soon forgotten quite. The same sad fate must over- 
take us all. Even our coffin must rot, and the very 
worms at last disdain our bones. Is this human life 
of ours all a dream? 

*' Certain it is that flowing water is not lost : it 
only vapourizes, and is returned to the rivers 
again. Yet I cannot believe that our Souls ascend 
to Heaven unchanged by death. Let us be happy in 
this world only. If even the shadow of our names 
remain for a few centuries, it is a very strange and 
delightful thing." 

June 16, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — . . . I have read the Char- 
levoix with strange feelings, and am returning it 
to-day. What another atmosphere was that. You 
can understand that I feel it, — having been so 
much in its modern continuation. Was it not a 
veritable madness? — like the Children's Crusade, 

— like the epidemics described by Hecker : those 
millions thirsting for pain and death, — those 
Jesuits crossing the whole world in absolute terror 
of arriving too late to have the chance to die. Do 
you know that the conviction has suddenly come 
to me that the great missionary successes of old 
Romish days can only be explained by illuminism, 

— not only mad faith, but contagious insanity, the 
capacity to communicate the cerebral disturbance 
to others. 

Ever, in haste, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 325 

Dear Chamberlain, — Thanks for precious let- 
ters — even the shar'p one, for that meant love — 
and the charming discussion on the moral question. 

By this time I imagine my letters have shown the 
state of affairs. I made a protest which was kindly 
received, with the assurance of a renewal of con- 
tract until March. Will it last.^^ I don't know. . . . 

Though I cannot but regret that I should become 
useless to the Japanese Government, I must hon- 
estly confess that I approve of the abolition of 
English studies. They should be permitted to those 
only gifted with a natural capacity for languages; 
and their indiscriminate, foolish, wholesale, topsy- 
turvy teaching has been a great aid to national 
demoralization. I can feel no possible sentiment 
of adverse criticism on this subject. It is simply 
jiujutsu. Vae victis? Japan experiments with 
everything, and retains only what will be of use to 
her — of great use to her. She is right. It is possible 
she miscalculates her strength; but I doubt it. It is 
possible she is going to play a Korean role, and 
bankrupt. But I doubt that too. We shall be dis- 
missed after use — just as the old Chinese teachers 
must have been in former days. They cared less, 
for they asked less; and they could live on rice. 

Well, the Japanese Gods have treated me toler- 
ably well: I trust in them. If I have to leave Japan 
awhile, it will not be for the worst. 

Now about your argument. Indeed, as you say, 
there is a vast spiritual side to Western life, and 
noble effort must ever rest upon a spiritual basis, — 
just as in hard science the most material possible 



326 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

fact rests upon a metaphysical basis. This has been 
beautifully proved by Huxley. For when we even 
touch the question of matter itself scientifically, the 
thing vanishes further than Berkeley's examination 
ever went, and leaves us in the presence of nothing 
but ghostliness. 

Unfortunately, however, there is what must be 
termed a material side to life, — the real material- 
ism. Our civilization, with all its aspirations, is 
industrial and commercial — and there is no moral- 
ity in that competition worth priding ourselves 
upon. It is n't Yankeedom more than it is Anglo- 
dom. See, for a terrible illustration of the facts in 
the case, Herbert Spencer's essay *'The Morals of 
Trade." Business men know this. The Eclectics 
you sent me contained several awful articles on the 
same subject, written by Englishmen. The fact 
seems to me that my young student is altogether 
right. Without having studied philosophy, he per- 
ceives that emotional morality must yield to legal 
morality; and I am trying to make him consider 
cosmic law the law to study, and he understands. I 
have English business friends : men who control vast 
movements of money. They do not hesitate to 
speak frankly about the cruelties and the bitterness 
of commercial competition. Our whole civilization 
is based upon immorality — if we are to accept 
either the Buddhist or the Christian system of 
ethics. There is a comparative morality, of course; 
but he who follows the old code must fail. What 
you and I love — what we admire — what we 
aspire after — does not belong to industrialism; yet 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 327 

only by industrialism can any of us — even a 
Spencer or Huxley or Tennyson — exist. We can 
do what is beautiful or right only by the aid of 
industrialism, unless, like Thoreau, we prefer to live 
in the woods. A larger morality will come — but 
only when competition ends. As for the condition 
of woman in Western lands, I think you refer only 
to the upper classes. The condition of woman in 
certain classes is horrible beyond Japanese imagin- 
ing. 

Ever sincerely, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

This year all the people of the street have been 
coming to my house on festival occasions. There is 
then a great crowd always — but perfectly behaved. 
In the court before the house, children, girls, and 
men dance fantastically. Girls dressed as men, and 
men as girls. This is to gladden the spirits of the 
dead. The songs sung on the shokonsai were curious, 
and the dances very interesting. I send a copy, — 
if you think worth while, you might ask somebody 
to translate them, at the usual rates. The dancers 
on this occasion wore curious headdresses. One had 
a wig of seaweed, — red seaweed, that made him 
look either like a Shojo or Norse pirate (he was a 
handsome fellow and danced splendidly). Another 
had an o-mikidokkuri on his head; others goliei; 
one an enormous daikon. The children danced 
prettily and blessed the house with gohei. A string 
stretched across the yard suflSced to keep back the 
women and babies and street-boys. What a relief 



328 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

to feel the atmosphere of the people, after stifling 
in the atmosphere of oflficialism ! Griflas said he had 
found that to Hve long in Japan spoiled a man. His 
meaning was wrong. But there is truth in his words. 
To live among oflacials does poison character — fills 
it with suspicions, hates, mean sensations. I can 
therefore well understand certain horrors of Tokyo. 

June 24, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your telegram came 
early this morning, "at the hour when the crows 
first fly abroad and cry" — but three days after 
the affair. It made us feel very glad; but you may 
imagine that we were not easy in mind. I was 
especially anxious about Mason; for I learned that 
no damage to speak of had occurred in Akasaka, 
but that the lower parts of the capital — those on 
the flat ground — had suffered severely. Oh ! dear ! 
what a country ! No wonder the doctrine of Imper- 
manency should have taken deep hold of the popu- 
lar mind. Even the face of the land continually 
changes. It is remarkable that we foreigners usu- 
ally escape. 

I wrote you yesterday not without qualms of con- 
science, — feeling as if I had no business to write 
at all till I got good news. 

I promised some samples of student-compositions, 
which I could guarantee as echantillons of the stand- 
ard feeling. The words of the old conservative lec- 
turers may have produced the fruit, or at least 
ripened it. Certainly it is ripe. 

(1) "What did our ancestors contribute to the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 329 

common stock of civilization is a most disagreeable 
question to all of us. It is shameful for us to hear 
that civilization is a product of the brain of the 
Caucasian. Only recently the Japanese were awak- 
ened by the foreigner. Now they have begun to sound, 
like a temple bell struck from the outside. And West- 
ern institutions have been rapidly introduced. 

"There was this reason for it. To a child the sun 
seems brighter and the moon larger than to an old 
man. Japan as a nation by itself is old, but as a 
nation of the world at large is very young. The 
Japanese were too easily stimulated by Western 
civilization, — because it seemed to them brighter 
and larger than it really was, as the moon seems to 
a child. Now the Japanese are becoming old. Ex- 
perience has taught them good lessons. But even 
if we grant the Japanese are below the Western 
nations in material progress, that does not mean 
they are morally lower also. Christians' minds are 
not higher than ours. A foreigner can observe the 
outward conditions; but it is very hard for him to 
read the depths of our soul. The Japanese never 
struggled to get freedom or equality. They knew 
that men cannot find real freedom or equality either 
on earth or in heaven. Stars are not equal. Some 
are larger than others; some are brighter. None 
move freely; all obey laws. The Japanese are not 
dreamers. It is true that nearly all Japanese are 
cold toward religion. They cannot dream about a 
God. ..." 

(2) "Statistics show not only that the average 
weight of the students in all the Higher Middle 



330 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Schools is decreasing year by year, but also that the 
number of short-sighted students becomes every 
year greater. Is this the result of too much study, 
or of the want of bodily exercise? I think the former. 
7/ the 'present educational regulations continue, the 
result will he very injurious to the next generation.''^ 

I reserve for a future letter some selections from 
atheistic compositions. I discourage them, but I fear 
I am only laughed at (good-naturedly) for my pains. 

The importance of teaching scientific philosophy 
in the schools, instead of barren logic and dead- 
bones of dead ethics, seems to me more and more 
of paramount importance. The higher education is 
simply making atheists — shallow atheists (perhaps 
I am an atheist myself, but there are differences of 
kind) — men who disbelieve simply through ignor- 
ance and undiscerning contempt of what they see; 
and who think that when they have said "matter 
is matter," that is the end of the whole business. 
And this will have its effect upon national morals 
— not so great an effect as some suppose, because 
moral character is inherited. Still it will accentuate 
all evil inclinations in those naturally vicious or 
weak. One can't make this generation religious. 
But one might certainly devise one sensible means 
of inculcating the scientific fact that raw material- 
ism is just as irrational and vulgar as any form of 
peasant superstition, and infinitely more injurious 
to the higher faculties of the mind. 

There is another advance notice of my book in 
the Atlantic which I send. But read this instal- 
ment of "Philip and his Wife." I think that woman 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 331 

is greater than George Eliot. Perhaps she indulges 
sometimes in touches neither of us quite like. But 
for fine, terribly -perceptive analysis, — what a 
writer. Notice, for example, the paragraph describ- 
ing her disgust with the every-day actions and ways 
of her husband, and the scene of the quarrel. The 
Gods have denied all such faculties of perception 
to me, — that is creatively. I know them only when 
I see them. — Then I think the practical paper on 
American railroads may interest you. Otherwise I 
see nothing to specially commend, — except, per- 
haps, the paper on Tortoni's. It seems to me to 
have been made up from French sources; for I read 
many bits of it in the Figaro, long ago. 

I am quite sorry to hear about all the trouble ^ 
you have with your Japanese assistants. I wonder * 
if every foreigner has not had some like experience. 
There is a nomad restlessness in this race which 
really finds pain in stability, regularity, permanency 
of any sort. The most amiable seem to have it. 
Even the sweetest Japanese woman has something 
of this Tartar soul. Like sweet women the world 
over, she loves to make a nest and collect treasures; 
but like her possible ancestors of the steppes, her 
life is still the life of tents. When she rests, she 
strives with charming success to make everything 
beautiful; but she is ready to-morrow to pull up 
the pegs and travel a thousand ri. And what won- 
der — since even the ground will not stay still. 
With best regards and felicitations, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



339 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

June 27, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your letter came late 
last night, and made me very glad. It is really nice 
to be able to think, or at least to feel, as if one's 
friends were specially cared for by the Gods. I had 
no idea when I first wrote you on the subject how 
much real danger there was so near you. 

There is no news here to send you, even about 
that tiresome subject — myself. The heat is great, 
but heat makes me feel young, although I am this 
blessed or accursed day exactly forty-four years old 
(27th June), and if I could be where it is always hot 
I think I should live to dry up and blow away. Still 
I can sympathize with your discomfort, — to enjoy 
great heat we should be able to dress or undress as 
we please, have freedom from dust, and the luxury 
of moving water — whether river, lake, or sea. I 
fear Tokyo has not these. 

Liquidly beautiful the sky-fire is, and everything 
looks sharp as the edge of a sword, and the white 
clouds seem souls of Bosatsu about to melt into 
Nirvana. There is pleasure always in this Nature 
— however wearisome the hard work of living (or 
working) with people who have no souls. For the 
Japanese oflficials have none. Imagine people hav- 
ing no sentiment of light — of blue — of infinity ! 
And they cannot feel possibly the beauty of their 
own day as you or I do. Think of the comparison 
of Fuji to a white half-open inverted fan hanging 
in the sky. Of course it is pretty; it is even start- 
lingly real; — but what sentiment is there in it? 
What feeling do mountains give these people? 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 333 

Surely nothing like the thought of Job, — ''He 
maketh Peace in His High Places*^ What feeling 
does light give them? — the light which makes us 
wish to pray — to thank somebody for it? Nothing 
like the utterance of John, — "Verily this is the 
message we give unto you, — that God is Light T^ 
What, even, is their thought of Nature — beauti- 
fully as they mock her? Has any among them ever 
so much as thought the thought of the Bhagavad- 
Gita, — "I am the breath of winds, the light of 
waters — most ancient and most excellent op 
poets"? . . . 

Never a one! They have lost the child-hearts 
that the Gods gave them, which were beautiful; 
and in place of them have something resembling the 
legendary apples of Sodom — full of bitterness and 
dust only. 

Oh dear! oh dear! I used to think I had no soul; 
but since coming here I think I have, — that if I 
try very hard, I could discover it. Converted from 
various nihilism* I have become. The Western 
world verily seems to me now only a Titan world, 
but a world charged with spirit, like a dynamo with 
lightning. Of course there are bottled devils in 
multitude, as in the Arabian tales of Soliman; but 
what a magical world it is ! — and how much does 
absolute exile from it mean ! 

I wonder how I shall feel in another few years. 
Would that I could go to those zones in which Na- 
ture remains primeval, — where light is divine, and 
where people walk forever with eyes fixed upon the 
ground, — looking for snakes. Then I should say 



S34 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

to the cobra, — "Thou art my sister and my bro- 
ther. Thou hast a soul. So have I. But I have been 
among men not having souls." 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Extracts from Compositions — showing the results 
of improved teaching by native teachers. 

(1) Human life is produced by the combination of 
those energies which compose the soul. When 
a man dies, his soul may either remain un- 

(Thisis changed, or may change according to what it 

not bad 

at all.) combines with. Some philosophers say the soul 
is mortal; some that it is immortal. They are 
both right. The soul is mortal or immortal 
according to the change in its combinations. 
But those elementary energies from which the 
soul is made, are, of course, immortal, — etc. 

(2) Why has man come into the world, and why 
should he struggle to succeed in life.'^ These are 
questions that have remained unanswered from 
ancient times. Religions were introduced into 
the world in order to explain them. Many relig- 
ions teach'^the existence of a God, and theorize 
about a paradise and a hell. But such opinions 
must have come out of human wishes. . . . etc. 

(3) Some say the world and all things were made by 
a God, omnipotent to do as he pleases. But 
there is no evidence for this. If there were such 
a God, why did he not make only good and use- 
ful things, and exclude all badness and useless- 
ness from the world .^^ God is nothing but an ideal 
being. He has no power to influence life or death. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN SS5 

(4) Perhaps there is a universal energy without 

beginning and end which is wrongly called 
*' God," and this energy appears as a man by its 
union with substance. When the union is de- 
stroyed life ceases, and the body only remains. 

(5) Nothing could be more foolish than to talk about 
the immortality of the soul. But even were 
such a thing possible, the soul could not con- 
tinue in the same form ; — for all things in the 
universe are constantly changing their charac- 
ters and conditions. 

(6) After the death of an ice-bear (sic!), a man takes 
off the fur of it. So the fur is preserved for the 
future. But after a man dies, what remains of 
him but a name? . . . etc. 

"The evil of the day," etc. You will see there is 
some excellent hard sense in some of these thoughts. 
The pity of it is that the half-scientific teaching 
hardens the mind before it half reaches the end of 
the matter. Then it stays petrified in materialism, 
or in a scepticism with no solid basis; — ergo, — 
the world is humbug? 

July 2, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I must say that the 
dreariest work I ever undertook was that of putting 
the three Daikokumai ballads into endurable Eng- 
lish prose. The work is nearly done, and I am very 
sick of it. Indeed, I could not have done it at all — 
except just a means of keeping my mind occupied in 
lieu of better work. 

And now, what on earth shall I do with them? 



836 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Of course they have much interest as folk-lore, but 
no literary value that I can discover. There is a 
weird coarseness about them, too, that, in addition 
to their flatness, renders it impossible to use them 
in my new book. They would jar with everything 
else. Your warning to me about Japanese litera- 
ture of this kind has been fully realized. There is 
nothing in it for me, — no poetry or thought or 
sentiment. 

At an examination in Conversation the other day, 
I put the following questions to the youngest classes 
as exercises: "How do you ask a favour politely?" 
"How do you refuse a favour politely?" 

I had scarcely any good answers to either, but 
some characteristic replies to the second one, e. g. : — 

*'I cannot lend you my dictionary, because I have 
been stolen my dictionary last night." 

"I am sorry not to lend you my horse, for he is 
sick. When he had returned to his pleasure, then 
I will lend to you for many week." 

Is n't it like your delicious rendering in " Classical 
Poetry," of that comedietta *'hone to kawa"? 

I can't expect an answer to this. For I hope to get 
away in a few days. Oh ! what a long, long month — 
and what a dull, dead town ! 

Ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Two most delightful let- 
ters, — one from you and one from Mason, both 
inviting me to pass a few days in Tokyo. I think I 
shall really go to 19 Akasaka Daimachi for a little 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 337 

while anyhow, — for I have bachelor-habits of long 
standing (I mean orderly ones, such as disturbing 
nothing, and giving as little trouble to others as pos- 
sible), and I would feel less of an intruder than I 
should in going into the midst of anybody's family, 
for more than an afternoon at a time. But it is very, 
very pleasant to be so kindly thought of, and I 
don't know what to say to you at all. . . . 

I am sorry about your spraining your hand, and 
have been thinking of suggesting archery as a sub- 
stitute for tennis. I have now become pretty good at 
using the bow ; but a leather glove seems to be neces- 
sary, — else the leap of the bow skins the palm. As 
I never practised with an English bow, I can't tell 
how the thing is handled; but the Japanese style is 
quite^difficult to learn. The bow is held not tightly, 
but loosely, so that it swings completely round in the 
hand at each pull. 

The bow describes an almost complete right- 
about, or rather, left-about face. This used to cut 
my hand to pieces; but now I get on by using a hand- 
wrap of soft cotton — in case of shooting for any 
length of time. I recommend the archery-exercise 
chiefly because of its coolness, compared with tennis 
or cricket. The chest, back, and arm-muscles are 
fully exercised; but the body has to be kept very 
steady, and one does not feel heated. 

It strikes me that there is a good deal of unwritten 
folk-lore to be got about bear-hunting; and I have 
just heard some facts which again suggest to me 
something I wrote you long ago, about a possible 
parallel to be found in Japanese customs for almost 



S38 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

everything generally said or believed to be purely 
Aino. What I wrote at the time alluded to was my 
suspicion that there must have been a common 
origin for the Ainu inao and the Japanese gohei. But 
now I want to talk about bears. In the mountain 
district of Goka in Yatsushiro, not very far from 
here, and in Ichigo (I think the place is in Ichigo), 
the people hunt bears. In the latter place they used 
to be employed by the Tokugawas to hunt bears — 
especially the "golden bear;" when a bear was 
killed, an officer was sent to the mountain village 
to receive the skin, etc. ; and this officer used to read 
a document which the people believed to be a sort 
of KyOf or religious address, which had the effect of 
giving peace and contentment to the soul of the 
bear. But since the passing away of the old cus- 
toms the people of the bear-hunting villages referred 
to, say that unless certain religious measures be 
taken, the spirits of the bears cause deformed child- 
ren to be born and other sad things to happen. So 
lots are cast, and every year or so two men are sent, 
according to the lots, to travel as pilgrims through 
all Japan to obtain repose for the souls of the bears. 
I have at least had evidence that pilgrims travel as 
pilgrims both from the Ichigo place and from Goka 
in Kyushu to lay the ghosts of the bears. Some 
carry with them a few hairs of a "golden bear" or 
part of a bear's dried stomach, said to be a panacea, 
and give these to those who treat them well. Now 
is n't this exactly like the Ainu custom after a bear- 
hunt — so far as the idea goes? However, the same 
desire to placate the souls of animals killed while 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 339 

hunting is followed, I believe, by many primitive 
peoples, — among others, even by some American 
Indian tribes. 

(I am just through with my examinations, but 
have been so overworked that I must postpone 
finishing this letter till to-morrow.) 

Shooting at a paper lantern at night is a very 
amusing kind of Japanese archery. Contrary to 
expectation, however, I found it was fearfully dif- 
ficult to hit. The great art is to aim an inch or two 
below the light, when the cup being shattered, the 
light at once goes out. My father-in-law destroys a 
lantern this way every time, — so I take care to tire 
myself shooting at it before he gets a chance. For at 
his first or second arrow — good-bye, lantern ! . . . 

My boy now seems to fill the larger part of this 
world, and is going to give me piles of occupation for 
the rest of my earthly career. How people can 
bear to have more than one or two now puzzles me 
really. One is almost too much for us all to attend to. 
Curiously, he takes to me more than to anybody, 
notwithstanding that I rarely play with him; — he 
has learned to give me my papers and letters, ride 
on my shoulder, and express his wishes without 
words. He is really remarkable in that he never 
cries. "Perhaps he shall become a Buddha" — • 
unless I can take him to Italy and drown him with 
music, and take him to France to learn something 
about life. I want to do wonderful things for him. 
And I really think I shall be able to. 

I got a beautiful set of compositions at the sum- 
mer examinations on the theme "Home." There is, 



S40 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

after all, delicious poetry in the boys. However, 
they will soon become selfish and hard, I fear; and 
will love nothing. What a humbug Government 
Education is! The Government is a mother, per- 
haps, but a stepmother only. The old terakoya was 
infinitely better in some points of view than all their 
detestable higher schools. 

I will not write again till I get nearer to you. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Yokohama, July 15, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — This is a very bad letter, 
because written under diflSculties. I hope to run up 
to 19 Akasaka Daimachi to-morrow, for a couple of 
days. 

I have been intimately acquainted with Mason for 
more than a million years, and understand, I think, 
just why you like each other. Mason is what Goethe 
would have called **a beautiful soul." I have been 
to his charming little home, and felt quite in Para- 
dise there, and love everything and everybody in 
it. We passed to-day at Kamakura swimming and 
indulging in debaucheries of beefsteak, whiskey and 
lemonade, gin and ginger ale and beer. His son was 
with us — and I like the little man very much ; we 
soon became friends. — Well, you understand how 
very, very delightful things were. I should not trust 
myself to say exactly what I felt about our holi- 
day. We are to take a trip together presently. 

Coming out of my solitude of nearly five years 
to stand on the deck of the Kobe Maru on the 10th, 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN S41 

I felt afraid. I saw myself again among giants. 
Everything seemed huge, full of force, dignity, 
massive potentialities divined but vaguely. A sud- 
den sense of the meaning of that civilization I had 
been so long decrying and arguing against, and 
vainly rebelling against, came upon me crushingly. 
In another few hours I had new friends. 

The first man I spoke to was an engineer. He and 
I felt each other at once. He had been, like myself, 
a wanderer, — had seen Mt. Everest from a bunga- 
low in Nepaul, — and studied many things. 

The twin bits of our race-souls touched at once. 
What no Japanese could feel, that rough square man 
knew, — and he seemed to me a deity, or a demi- 
deity , — and I felt like one about to worship West- 
ern Gods. 

Another day, and I was in touch with England 
again. How small suddenly my little Japan be- 
came! — how lonesome! What a joy to feel the 
West! What a great thing is the West ! What new 
appreciations of it are born of isolation! What a 
horrible place the school ! — I was a prisoner re- 
leased from prison after five years' servitude! 

Then I stopped thinking. For I saw my home, — 
and the lights of its household Gods, — and my boy 
reaching out his little hands to me, — and all the 
simple charm and love of old Japan. And the fairy- 
world seized my soul again, very softly and sweetly, 
— as a child might catch a butterfly. 

Still, I am rather inclined to look forward to 
Tokyo. I can't dislike it any more. I have seen 
Mason's home, — so Tokyo seems to me very beau- 



342 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

tiful after all. — What queer experiences these! — 
how they make a man feel himself a creature of the 
forces of life — moved and moulded by that which 
is outside of himself! 

How would it be were I here for a couple of years? 
Just now, you know, I seem to be in Scandinavia. 
Never did I see so many blond men with accipitrine 
noses. Berserker eyebrows, etc. I did not know how 
fair Englishmen were till now. I give up many 
notions. I must write of disillusions, and speak 
respectfully of the open ports. 

Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Excuse this letter. The room is awfully hot, and 
I'm writing on a washstand. 

Tokyo, July 17, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — The banks were inaccess- 
ible for three days after my arrival in Yokohama, 
and it was only yesterday afternoon (Monday) that 
I was able to wind up my little business in Yoko- 
hama, and wire to Toda. (By the way, the bank 
manager, a very nice fellow, — after giving me a 
lecture for not having settled the business a year 
ago, — practically made me a present of fifty yen. 
I don't think bankers are such terrible people after 
all. Certainly no American banker would have done 
it — at least not for an insignificant school-teacher.) 

Well, now for what would have been written last 
night had I not been very tired. 

On the way from Shimbashi, I stopped at Hase- 
gawa's, gave him two stories, and liked him. At 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 343 

your house all was in waiting for me; but the dog 
first made my acquaintance, — running before to 
the gate. He is now watching my every movement 
as I write, — and we are good friends. 

Mr. Toda is too kind, and takes too much trouble 
for me. He was not in at the moment I came, — but 
making preparations for me on the strength of the 
telegram. He speaks English — which is delightful, 
as I can express all my wants. The charm of the 
home lacks but one thing — your presence ; but I 
am not selfish enough to wish you to leave the 
mountains even for a day while this prodigious heat 
lasts. (I like heat; but I doubt if many do; and the 
heat in Tokyo is tropical.) I can't yet write my im- 
pressions about 19, — as I am still confused with 
kindnesses. Only — that delightful casket in the 
room upstairs with the medallion on top enclosing 
a picture of some structure that might have been 
the stately pleasure dome of Kubla Khan — what 
a fairy-thing it is ! . . . 

And now for confessions. I am glad my paper on 
jiujutsu was not published; and I am grateful to the 
Gods for having been obliged to visit Tokyo and 
Yokohama. The jiujutsu paper must be remodelled ; 
and my ideas of the open ports reconstructed, re- 
paired, renovated, and decorated. I have received 
from the Gods inspiration for a paper, — the Ro- 
mance of the Open Ports, — or, perhaps, the moral- 
ity of the open ports. If I had Michelet's divine gift 
of uttering tender surprises, I could startle the world 
with a paper on the ideas that came to me the other 
day. Perhaps there are illusions among them, too. 



344 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

But, after all, what are all high ideals but illusions, 
and all high thought and sentiment lives by them, 
and ascends by them, — as by those golden fairy- 
ladders of legend, — whereof each step vanishes as 
quickly as the foot passes it? Really, I was totally 
unfitted to make any judgments about the ports 
when I left them. I had had my ugly experiences 
with American business men and American trick- 
sters, who played the role of friends for a purpose; I 
had seen infinitely too much of the black side of life 
as a journalist of long standing; I was uncomfortably 
situated and had Hinton in my thoughts as a co- 
lonial type. In short I had seen nothing which I 
ought to have seen. Then, by contrast, the caressing 
atmosphere into which I entered on going to Izumo 
— where secret orders had been given "to make 
the foreigner happy " — affected my judgment still 
more. Now comes the turn. The hospitable open- 
ness, the sympathies, and the abnegations light up 
for me all at once. 

But here is the principal fact that impressed me 
about the moral question, — entre nous; for I don't 
want anybody else to get on the track of the idea 
till I develop it. 

Morality is not shown by any unavoidable obe- 
dience to codes — indeed, it's often shown in the 
breaking of them. It is shown best, I think, when 
men, in defiance of traditions, conventions, and 
prejudices, — without any obligation, and in utter 
disregard of their own interests, — follow the guid- 
ing of their hearts on the path of what they feel to 
be eternally right and true. Race prejudice and 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 345 

cruelty do exist: they exist everywhere a little; and 
the unfortunate quality of goodness is that it re- 
mains invisible and silent. Love and generosity do 
not get themselves talked about: they never "ad- 
vertise," — as Kipling would say. And, indeed, the 
fact that they are taken as a matter of course sug- 
gests their commonness. In connexion with all this, 
there is a beautiful subject — requiring very delicate 
handling — that has never been touched. What of the 
numbers who have given up England, France, Italy, 
— all the large Western life, — all that made them, 
and all that must in silent hours pull at their heart- 
strings as the sea pulls at the soul of a boy, — for 
pure love of duty? Never again will they dwell with 
their kindred, — never visit the scenes they dream 
of in sick hours, — when the Past floats back to say, 
hand in hand with the Shadow of Death, — "We 
are waiting. Come!" They have wealth; they have 
no obstacles or laws to hinder them. Only moral 
obligations they need not perforce obey. But even 
these have little to do with the matter. It is simply 
love — the purified affection, from which every 
atom of selfishness has been sifted out ages ago. In 
the brief time since I got on the Kobe Maru I have 
learned so many astonishing things, that it really 
seems to me I must have been guilty of blasphemies 
in other days — may the Gods forgive my ignor- 
ance! — And then the tales of prejudice! Numbers 
have given their whole lives and brains and means 
not merely to do what is right and good, but what is 
extraordinary and generous to the uttermost limit 
of their human capacity. My imaginary hard- 



S46 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

fisted and cold-hearted business men of the colonies 
vanish away — phantoms only; and in their places 
what warm human realities appear ! — Really there 
is a vast romance to be written here in a few words 

— with help of thoughts and illustrations from 
evolutional philosophy. — How you should smile to 
compare this letter with other letters written long 
ago ! But in a few years more, how will I be writing 
to you again? Truly we have not permanent opin- 
ions until our mental growth is done. The opinions 
we have are simply lent us for a while by the Gods 

— at compound interest. 

Really, I must try later to get into this exiled 
Western life, and love it, and study it, — and tell 
all the beautiful things there are in it, leaving that 
which is not beautiful to be related by its enemies. 

"Read all my books!!" — I have n't been able to 
read anything yet. I may be able to take a few 
glimpses at some one corner of this wilderness of 
good things. — I will read the titles, though, as 
knowing what you have may help me later to pick 
up for you something you have not. 

Mason and I project a trip to Nagano for a few 
days. I will leave my valise with your kind Toda, 
and seek Zenkoji, — whither all the dead must go 
before their journey to the Meido. Mason is a man 
awfully fond of movement. I could not live as he 
has to do. Had I such a sweet little home in Tokyo, 
nothing could pull me out of it except at vast inter- 
vals of time. He needs exercise, however,'^and re- 
minds me of a Targui (the plural "Touareg(s)" 
is always used by the papers, in spite of the books 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 347 

about that extraordinary race). You know they are 
very tall fair men with blue eyes (when the race is 
pure) . "They can be known far off by their walk, — 
long and measured, like the stride of the ostrich."* 

Ever with best regards and — but I can't thank 
you on paper for all this, you know! I shall try to 
revenge myself at some future day — 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

19 Akasaka Daimachi, July 20, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Yesterday, just after 
posting some lines to you, there came from Miyano- 
shita one of the very prettiest letters I ever got: 
I certainly shall follow your advice, — even to the 
matter of title, probably. The book is already, you 
know, half-done, eight papers having been finished. 

Did any philologist ever before, in this mortal 
world, coolly tell his friend, — "Just take along 
with you any of my books you wish to read"? I 
don't think so. You are really too kind to me; — 
however, I think I can consult them here, in this 
cosy room, for all I need to look up. I have been 
mining extensively; but you will find no volume out 
of place when you return. Here are a few notes on 
what I have been doing: — 

After Charlevoix the other literature and letters 
of the Jesuits interest me little. I glanced through 
some volumes in French and Spanish, and through 
Satow's monograph on the mission-press. (What a 
world of unfamiliar things you have !) Then I read 
three volumes of Tolstoi, full of tender deep caress- 
ing melancholy; I re-read (third time) Loti's Kyoto 



348 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

("La Ville Sainte")* and judged it more kindly. 
Lowell's papers on " Esoteric Shinto " greatly disap- 
pointed me. He utterly fails to feel the emotional 
significance of oracles, — their relation to human 
life from ancient times, their consolatory value, 
their infinite poetry behind the poor little mask of 
necessary fraud. So with the calling back of the 
dead, the messages from the underworld: for what 
myriads have these wrought peace of heart ! — I 
read Wepfner, and gnashed my teeth: what a 
beastly little woman! I did not read "The Japanese 
Bride," but I read all your delicious comments on 
the margin. I looked through Dickson (not Dixon), 
and admired him. He has art and taste. I glanced 
at the Italian of the Avaloketesvara Sutra — it 
seems less beautiful than in its embodiment in the 
Saddharma Pundarika (Kern's version) ; — there is 
a sublime invocation in the English, beginning, "O 
Thou whose eyes are beautiful, whose eyes are kind, 
whose eyes are full of sweetness and of pity . . ."or 
words to that effect. — Nitobe's book on the United 
States and Japan I liked very much. The curious 
"Memorials of the Empire" is of supreme literary 
value for elective references. Besides this, I have 
turned over the leaves of scores and scores of books 
on Japan, — and am not halfway through making 
acquaintance with the legion. I was delighted with 
the little volume of quotations from Schopenhauer: 
a masterpiece of editing. I was delighted with the 
pretty pictures to Ayame-San, and greatly vexed to 
think such fine work should have been wasted on 
such disgusting trash as Murdoch's text. — To-day 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 349 

I expect to look over many more books. I admire 
your impartiality as much as anything; — you seem 
to have read and commented upon such a host of 
things on Japan that try one's patience; and your 
notes make the humorous side of the work the apo- 
logy for its being. — I really had no idea until now 
how much had been done in certain lines ; and feeling 
that all I could do would be only to add a few bricks 
to the great Babel, I have become properly humble, 
— I hope. But all this only to show you that I have 
not been idling my time. 

Upstairs, where on the tansu "the shadow of the 
dome of pleasure floateth midway on the waves," — 
I have been greatly taken by the mosquito-house. I 
never saw anything resembling this outside of the 
marsh country in Southern Louisiana; but even 
there the arrangement is not adapted for bedrooms, 
but for office-work, and the netting is wire. Along 
the Lakes, near the mouth of the Mississippi, and 
along the Gulf coast, wire netting is used for all the 
openings of the house in summer. The structure at 
19 Akasaka Daimachi is more simple, ingenious, 
and effective than any I have met before. — The 
work on that stove in the library is a wonderful 
thing in its way: indeed, lam constantly finding 
wonders. At night, curiously enough, I hear exactly 
the sounds that I hear at night in Kumamoto — the 
calling of the bugles, the chorus of military song. I 
could fancy myself at home. But the night before 
last I dreamed of robbers. The robbers became 
transformed into something nameless and awful. I 
did not see them — only felt them. Something 



350 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

entered the house; and the stairs groaned under a 
hideous weight: I wanted to rise, but could not. It 
was coming, coming. I suddenly awoke; and felt the 
whole house shaking. Imagine the momentary sen- 
sation! An earthquake, — and a very, very long 
shock. Didn't I think about the Meido! — Then 
the force of the old Scripture verse came to me, — 
about "the thief in the night;" — earthquakes are 
certainly the weirdest things in human experi- 
ence. 

At Mason's last night, — a Japanese dinner, very 
elegant and dainty, — Koto-playing by Mrs. M. 
and her sister (one of the sweetest little women I 
ever met) , — a display of fireworks by the boys, — 
a great big warm moon. One of those evenings that 
never die: — But I fear all these experiences will 
demoralize me. After rescue, a castaway enjoys too 
much the food offered; a physician stands by to pre- 
vent him eating enough. My ghostly part was really 
too hungry for such experience, and feels longings 
not wholesome for it; — sympathy is the supreme 
delight of life. I ought now to meet some horribly 
disagreeable foreigners, — so as to have my pleasure 
checked a little. Besides, I am much too happy to 
write essays and sketches. 

The heat is great. — The dog sits by me at dinner, 
comes to bid me good-morning regularly, and if I am 
not up by a decent hour, he utters a little plaintive 
cry outside the fusuma. He knows the hours for 
everything as well as if he studied the clock. — 
Mason and I probably will start on Saturday for a 
short trip to Zenkoji. The heat is still mighty — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN S51 

equatorial. This is a poor letter; but intended only 
as an indication of how all is with your small ques- 
tion. . . . 

Ever very faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 

Tokyo, July 21, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I am stealing a few 
sheets of your note-paper until I can supply myself, 
which I hope to do to-day. 

And here is Mason putting oflf our trip for three 
days more on account of his friend. So I am likely 
to torment Toda until Tuesday. He is very good. 
We went out shopping together yesterday. The 
Atlantic has come, but I have not received my copy 
yet, and only saw the number belonging to the 
Mail. I shall mail it as soon as it comes from Ku- 
mamoto. Somehow or other I don't feel that my 
story is a success. 

Kuroda's "Outlines of the Mahayana" and Mun- 
ro's pamphlet on the " Physical Basis of Mind in 
Relation to Evolution " are both interesting me 
much. I have got several strong suggestions from 
the former — nothing new from the latter, but the 
sensation of a soul that I should like to know bet- 
\/ ter. — ^The most mysterious thing about any germ 
or sperm-cell, but especially about the human one, 
is that it contains potentially all the future idiosyn- 
cracies and capacities of the individual, as well as 
all the tendencies of the race. Now every material 
explanation of this has been demolished. Supposing 
the atom, or force centre itself, to carry the secret 



352 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

modification, the mathematician has very plainly 
proven that the number of atoms in the cell could 
not possibly be adequate for such enormously com- 
plex hereditary transmissions as take place. Spencer 
suggests a sort of polarity, and Munro tries to 
follow him. There is a world of suggestion in the 
mere fact of this impossibility to explain the trans- 
mission. Polarity, etc., — all ghostliness, — who 
knows what it is? If these tendencies which make 
individuals and races belong, as they seem to do, to 
the life of the cosmos, — what strange possibilities 
are in order! Every life must leave its eternal re- 
cords in the Universal life, — every thought of good 
or ill or aspiration, — and the Buddhistic Karma 
would be a scientific, not a theoretical doctrine. All 
about us the thoughts of the dead, and the life of 
countless dead worlds, would be forever acting in- 
visibly upon us. 

How touching Tolstoi is! Still, the fault of the 
beautiful religion of the man is simply that it is un- 
suited to the real order of things. Resentment, as 
Spencer has not hesitated to point out, is not only 
essential to self-preservation, but is often a moral 
duty. Altruistic characters may be regulated by 
Buddhist or Christian codes of action — but what 
about anti-altruistic characters, the Ape-souls and 
tiger-souls whose pleasure is in malice or destruc- 
tion? The number is few; — but which of us has 
not met some, and recognized their capacity for 
evil? I believe the mass of humanity is good. I 
think every man must so think who has suffered 
much, and reached middle life. Nevertheless the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 353 

sum of this goodness is not so preponderant that we 
can practically adopt either Tolstoiism or Buddhism 
to our Western civilization. Indeed no general 
course of action will suit. The dynamics of ethics 
must be varied according to class and time. The 
great fault of all religious systems is their applica- 
tion of a single code to many widely different condi- 
tions. — For all that, Tolstoi is certainly a light of 
the world, — a practical Christ in his own life. Cu- 
rious that in Russia and England, in the same gener- 
ation, two poets, Ruskin and Tolstoi, should have 
attempted to follow in practice the teaching, "Sell 
all thou hast, and give it to the poor." The most 
religious men of the nineteenth century are the in- 
fidels — the "atheists and blasphemers.'* 

I wish you could get Minnie Hauk to sing you a 
Habanera, or the Seguidilla (seducing word!) from 
"Carmen. " I heard her sing it, and the little eddies it 
made in my soul still thrill. — I cannot tell how glad 
I was to find that Mason had not read Prosper Meri- 
mee's "Carmen." The opera, lovely as it is, does 
not give the awful poignancy of the tale — simple 
and clear beyond description. I am going to send 
it up to you, with a bundle of other things, as soon 
as I get back. 

This reminds me of a dream I had a few months 
ago. I was sleeping, after reading " Carmen " for the 
fifth time, I think — quite a tropical afternoon it 
was. I entered a patio, — between lemon-coloured 
walls, — there was a crowd and music. I saw no 
face in the crowd — only felt people were there; — 
all my eyes and soul were for a gypsy dancing in the 



354 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEAEN 

midst; — poising, hovering, balancing, tantalizing 
with eyes and gestures, — and every click of the 
castanets went into my blood. I woke up and found 
the clicking of the castanets was only the ticking 
of the little clock, — strangely exaggerated in the 
heated silence of the afternoon. 

The enormous laughter of the crows every morn- 
ing amuses me very much. I had not heard any- 
thing like it since leaving Izumo. The only striking 
bit of weirdness in "Shuntoku Maru" is that about 
indicating the time of the apparition of the boy's 
dead mother as "the hour when the crows first fly 
crying abroad, before the breaking of the day.*' 

Let me entreat you, if you have it not already 
as an experience, to procure yourself the curious 
sensation of the " Kalewala," in Leouzon Le Due's 
complete prose- version. (A partial translation in 
two volumes appeared in '55; a complete one, at 
five francs, one volume, 1884.) The episode of the 
dead mother is one of the most touching things in 
all literature. "Then the mother arose from the dust 
of her rest, and said: — "My son, for thee I have 
kept the dog to be thy guide and friend; thou 
wilt find the dog tied to the tree" — perhaps you 
remember the lines. 

The Tokyo Club (Rokumeikwan?) was a great 
surprise to me. Architecturally and otherwise, it 
would be a credit to any city in the world. The 
reading-room is an invaluable advantage. Still, I 
could never accustom myself to that kind of life. It 
has occasional high value for me: just a dip into its 
atmosphere. But were I able to live in the capital, I 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 355 

should try to live very, very quietly — just as I have 
been doing. One could never do any literary work, 
and belong to society life in the real sense of belong- 
ing. And to mingle at all with that existence, with- 
out losing one's own rights to seclusion and quiet, 
requires a character and experience much superior 
to mine. It is a constant wonder to me how you can 
be yourself, and yet give yourself so much to others, 
— despite all the leisure you can have. 

On your writing-desk there has been placed for 
me, at my request, a little tabako box, and, dressed 
in only a yukata and slippers, I write, smoking my 
Japanese pipe betimes — taking a cigar only after 
meals (small cigars I always carry with me when 
travelling). The dictionary laid aslope on the table, 
with the blotting-paper upon it, exactly suits me for 
writing upon. — Upstairs, in the mosquito-house, 
I use the hard pillow only — it is nice and cool. 
They give me a bath every morning. Toda cooks 
exquisitely, but gives me too many good things: I 
have to tell him not to take so much pains, and to 
restrict him as to dishes. His coffee (I take it black 
only) is divine. — How shall I get even with you for 
all this? I don't yet know, but I shall pray the Gods 
to help me find out. 

I am both glad and sorry for knowing Mason. 
Why glad I need not say. But I shall feel sorry when 
I am separated from him ; — and anticipate regrets 
of various kinds. What a delightful thing Schopen- 
hauer says in that little book of yours — comparing 
men to porcupines, trying to huddle together for 
warmth, and presently repelled again by the contact 



S56 LETTERS OF LATCADIO HEARN 

of their prickles ! Mason has no porcupine-quills for 
me. It is such an experience to be close to a man 
like that. 

Surely you are bored by this time. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

July 22, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Yesterday at Otsu with 
Mason, — but would rather far have passed the day 
in his house. Still we had a glorious swim, and the 
sight of a fishing-net pulled in, — what splashing 
and spraying of prismatic colours ! Otsu is not Japan- 
ese, however, — except the background of sky and 
mountain and sea. It has been spoiled — become a 
mere trap for foreign flies — saucy girls — rough 
proprietor — huge straggling spaces of "ramshackle " 
rooms — as one of the guests called them. There 
is, however, a glorious beach, and a great warm wind 
like a trade-wind. 

After all, I am not going to Nagano ! — After 
glancing over my passport. Mason came to the con- 
clusion that we could be only one day together; and 
as the anticipated pleasure depended largely upon 
his company, I gave up the notion. I am getting 
ready to say good-bye to Tokyo, and shall disappear 
as soon as he flits. I shall go to Yokohama, however, 
and pass there a few days, feeling pulses — as I 
want to provide if possible against being compelled 
to leave Japan. What may happen next March none 
of us can guess. One sure thing is that if the Depart- 
ment conclude to do without us for a spell, we shall 



TO BASEL HALL CHAMBlJRLAIN 357 

never be taken back again upon the same terms. 
This uncertainty (which Mason well calls the sword 
of Damocles) poisons every pleasure, and paralyzes 
every undertaking. 

Still mining in your library. I envy you the glori- 
ous sets of Transactions, of the various Asiatic Soci- 
eties; and the " Lettres Edifiantes " have finally got 
hold of me. I took the liberty, also, to cut with the 
horse-hoofed paper-cutter the pages of a book you 
had not read — the bard of the Deinbovitzu. I found 
queer inexpressible beauties and originalities in 
them — a sort of savage tenderness and fierce grief 
such as reminded me of the Servian poetry. The 
Servian poetry seemed to me, however, far more 
interesting, and, with all its strange ferocities, more 
perfectly natural. A half -suspicion clings to this col- 
lection : its tone seems due to individual taste in set- 
ting, pruning, and decorating. What a curious half- 
Eastern world is this world of Eastern Europe! I 
suppose you have read the Unwritten literature of 
the Caucasus: — the same indescribable mingling 
of bloody ferocity with tenderness and lamentation. 

I have not yet found among your books the pretty 
translations of Japanese moral tales made by Turre- 
tini (I think) which I used to possess (Romaji text 
and French version), and some of the charming 
prints of the Musee Guimet. Perhaps you have 
them stowed away. If you have not, I think you 
might like to add them to this glorious collection. 
My library of ancient days was chiefly folk-lore. I 
had the Arabic poets in many editions, the whole 
Bibliotheque Orientale Elzevirienne (Leroux) up to 



358 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

date, — the larger Bibliotheque Orientale, contain- 
ing Burnouf's great essay, etc., etc., — "Les Lit- 
teratures Populaires " (Maisonneuve), and hosts 
of such things. Except that their perusal enriches 
fancy, and gives glimpses of other race-souls, how- 
ever, they are of small use to men not serious 
scholars or finished poets. To you I fancy some of 
these French series would be highly valuable. The 
genius of the race shows itself even in the serious 
work of their philologists: they select, curiously 
enough, just those subjects which English trans- 
lators rarely touch. It seems to me that the really 
human side of Oriental literature in the Trans- 
actions of your own Asiatic Society has been appre- 
ciated only by Aston, Satow, and yourself. Such 
papers as "Mistress An's Tale," and "A Literary 
Lady of Old Japan," and three or four others, form 
so striking a contrast to the work usually done by 
the mass of the contributors. This literary sense 
strikes me as being shown in a more general way 
by the French Orientalists, — however defective 
their work may be in other respects. Comparing, 
for example, Lenormant and Maspero in Assyrian 
and Egyptian studies with English studies in the 
same line, — how much greater is the charm of the 
former for one able to understand the literary side 
only. . . . 

Mason said a pretty thing the other day in the 
train. Opposite to us were sitting little mothers 
with their children. Both mothers and children were 
good to look at, — and the little white feet in snowy 
tabi seemed scarcely of this world. Mason looked at 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 359 

the dainty picture with a caress in his eyes, and 
said: — "If those people could only feel for us the 
sympathy we feel toward them — !" Indeed the 
whole question of life in Japan to a sensitive West- 
erner was summed up in that half -utterance. The 
unspeakable absence of sympathy, as a result, per- 
haps, of all absence of comprehension, is a veritable 
torture. Consequently, the entering into relations 
of sympathy again temporarily is for me like an 
electric bath. The charm is something like the first 
sensation of the tropic world. Really I have been 
a great blasphemer, and am well punished therefor. 
Now the idea of returning into the life of Japan is a 
growing terror to be overcome. I have been partly 
demoralized by my Tokyo days. I need a little 
medicine of unkindness — want to be sickened for 
a time of Yokohama, etc. 

Hasegawa gave me a cheque of twenty for my 
first story, and seems extremely anxious to get 
more. This will please you, I know. 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

July 24, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Mason is gone, — leav- 
ing a great void in my psychical atmosphere. I lin- 
ger awhile, hoping to-day or to-morrow at latest to 
have the Atlantic for you, and to arrange a little 
matter in connexion with the Boston firm. 

I never had the experience before of coolly taking 
possession of a friend's house during his absence, — 
and feel a slight remorse of conscience which I can't 
get over, no matter how many kind things you may 



360, LETTERS OF LATCADIO HEARN 

say. If I did not hope to be able to give you some 
day an almost equal amount of pleasure, I should 
really feel very bad — and there is no use reasoning 
about the thing at all, because feeling is quite inde- 
pendent of reasoning. Indeed reason is the most 
tricky and treacherous thing in the world; and the 
Shinto formula, "obey your own heart," is much 
more satisfactory. — There are several pleasures in 
having been here which I did not speak about yet. 
First it is nice to know a friend's home — in which 
something of him always lives wherever he be; — to 
comprehend his pleasures and habits through the 
kindness of servitors who try to make the guest as 
happy as their own master (placing the lounge for 
him where the breeze blows, and all these little 
attentions) ; — to get an idea of the geography of 
his intellectual world, and glimpses of the favourite 
literary paths; — to notice and sympathize with his 
comments on margins; — to be instructed by the 
mere names of the volumes he has collected in all 
places; — to understand something of his tastes, 
and so to take pleasure in all his happiness ; — in 
short, to have the definite sensation of what we 
might call "The Soul of the House.'* For every 
dwelling in which a thinker lives certainly acquires 
a sort of soul — there are Lares and Penates more 
subtle than those of the antique world; — these 
make the peace and rest of a home. And besides, 
there are memories of England which bring back 
visions of my boyhood — suggestions no American 
home furnishes. The English crest on silver plate, 
— the delicious little castors, — the "homey" ar- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 361 

rangement of articles which represent the experience 
of generations in search of good soHd comfort, — all 
created for me a sort of revival of old, old, and very- 
intimate impressions. Therefore, I suppose, some 
ghosts of very long ago came soundlessly about me 
once or twice in twilight time, — and portraits of 
another era, forgotten for thirty-five years, faintly 
shaped themselves for me in the dusk before the 
lighting of the lamp. In thought I sat again upon 
the floor of a house which no longer exists, and shot 
at armies of tin soldiers with cannon charged with 
dried peas. For, just as the faintest odour of fresh 
tar recalls visions of unnumbered days of travel, — 
decks and faces and ports and horizons of which the 
names have faded out altogether, — so it requires 
only a very little suggestion of England to resurrect 
home-days. 

I have almost stopped mining in sheer despair. 
It would take me ten years to work through all these 
veins — I mean the veins I could work a little; for 
one large section would ever remain for me incom- 
prehensible as a grimoire. — I never saw the work 
of Captain Basil Hall before, — though his name, 
attached to translations of his books, has been long 
familiar to me in French catalogues. Looking over 
the beautiful little volumes in calf, I could not help 
thinking that our English prints of to-day are, on the 
whole, quite inferior to the choice texts of that time 
— when type, paper, and binding possessed a dur- 
able solidity and beauty that latter-day competition 
is destroying. To-day, our best English prints seem 
like imitations of French work. 



362 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Since you thought enough of the Creole Grammar 
to bind it, I must send you a couple of Creole prints 
I have at home. Should I ever be able to recover my 
library, I could give you an almost complete set of 
works relating to all the French-Creole dialects. 
What I regretted was my inability to procure the 
Catechism of Goux (Pere). I had it in my hands, 
but coiild not persuade the owner to part with it. I 
think my next letter will be from Yokohama. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 

August 9, 1894. 

Deak Chamberlain, — After five — no, six — days 
at sea, and eight hours rail {Kato — with the ther- 
mometer at 96!), I am home again, naked, cool, and 
able to write. I found all well, and my boy crawling 
about and opening drawers and developing terrify- 
ing capacities of rapid growth and mischief. I de- 
livered your kindest message, which gave no small 
pleasure; — and, full of those pleasant memories, 
which are wholesome regrets, I sit down to chat 
with you. Not so pleasant as under the stars among 
the shrubbery shadows at Miyanoshita, — but that 
was a luxury, and might happen only once in a life- 
time. 

What shall I chat of? I think you would be most 
interested about my experiences with men and 
women on board. The experiences of travel are 
usually among the most pleasant in our lives — ugly 
ones being comparatively rare. The general rule 
would seem to be that human nature in any normal 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 363 

condition of a purely temporary kind throws off its 
armour of reserve, abandons its ferocity of egotism, 
and exposes to the best light whatever of kindness 
it owns. I have made a few acquaintances of whom 
I hope to hear again. 

My roommate was a mate — a steamboat mate 
in the N. Y. K.'s employ, — a long hard man, very 
young, built like a greyhound, representing the 
swarthiest type of swarthy Englishman. His heavy 
black brows, hawk-nose, and heavy chin were lighted 
up by a wonderful smile, however, as we met; and 
that smile made us friends at once. I expected 
to find him rough and straight, and I did. Very 
soon I learned all his life, — his ideas of right and 
wrong, plain and good, — his sacrifices for others, — 
his hopes about the sweetheart waiting at home. 
It was pleasant as a cool strong sea- wind on a burn- 
ing day. He liked rough jesting, and spared me 
instinctively, but teased the other passengers con- 
siderably, who seemed to allow his domination 
without regret. Samples of conversation ought to 
have been written down, — but I laughed too much 
at the time, and next day forgot them. Only a few 
fragments are herewith submitted : — 

Mate. — *' Is that lady your sister? " 

Passenger. — "Yes." 

M. — *' Can't see the resemblance." 

Pass. — "Well, that's not my fault. Still, I'm 
younger than she is." 

M. — "Young! — you'll never see fifty-nine 
again!" 

Pass. — "I'm only thirty-three." 



364 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

M. — " Good Lord ! You '11 be a nice-looking brute, 
won't you? — at sixty. Why, you're half -dead 
now!" 

Pass. — "Just out of the German army." 

M. — "Well, well! — Many soldiers like you?" 

Pass. — "Not many so good. I took all the prizes 
for shooting." 

M.—" With what?" 

Pass. — "With a gun." 

M. — " What gun — your gun? I don't think you 
could shoot much with that." . . . 

Pass. — "Those are pretty good shoes — what 
number? Mine's five." 

M. — "Five! I should n't like to be lying down 
in the street when you 're walking around with that 
number five ! — That 's eleven — or fourteen ! " 

Pass. — "Well, it's too large for me. But I like 
that — because number five and number fourteen 
are just the same price: you see I like to get the 
worth of my money." 

A very sweet-faced elderly woman, who adapted 
herself to the seaman's rough ways with gentle 
success, attracted me pleasantly. She was on her 
way to Vladivostok. She was an expert in electro- 
metallurgy, kinetics, and mineralogy. Her husband, 
a Frenchman who looked like a front-page drawing 
by Cham out of the Charivari^ was rightly proud 
of her, — and told her to explain to me the defects of 
triple-expansion engines and other things, — which 
she did very shyly and sweetly. I learned to almost 
love the old lady, told her all I could about Japan 
to interest her, and about my own affairs. She gave 



■m 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 365 

me her ideas about things delightfully, and with 
that perfectly straight natural sympathy which is 
essentially German. "The future," she said, "is to 
natural science. The old professions are being more 
and more overrun. If your boy has a good head, give 
him a scientific education — there is a sure future 
for the man having practical scientific knowledge." 
As we passed the high cliffs, — she would point out 
streaks of colour, and tell me the names of metals 
that could be extracted from them. 

Her brother — a fiery red — one of those men 
who look as if ready to break into flame — was all 
good-nature and honesty. He had a curious way of 
gazing at you with half -shut eyes — letting only 
the least steely glimmer filter out between the eye- 
lids: I had only once before seen that sort of gaze, 
in a Spanish fencer — a decidedly dangerous man. 
But this, I felt sure, was due to other causes. The 
Spaniard had teeth in his eyes: this German gaze 
was pure fine steel. At Kobe, we all tried with 
glasses to read the name of a hotel from the deck: 
he read it at a glance, with the naked eye. He was 
the crack-shot of a German corps, — and long prac- 
tice had given him that singular manner of looking 
at things and people, as if taking aim. He got up 
in the night to see me off — so did his nice old sister. 
I took their address, and they promised to write 
me, and want me to visit them, if I can, at Vladi- 
vostok. The three belong to some electrical com- 
pany, — the woman, curiously enough, being the 
scientij&c head of the undertaking. 

The fifth acquaintance was a globe-trotter, — a 



366 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Swiss ex-officer of artillery, — on a three years' 
journey. Curious! he had just come from New 
Orleans ! He was a man of the world — hard and 
cold as a glacier, — and it took some time to make 
him thaw. The thawing was pleasant — because he 
was a thoroughly well-informed man on everything 
relating to Switzerland, — and he almost induced 
me to study some means of settling there in future 
time. He spoke Russian, Italian, French, and Ger- 
man as well as English ; and he had been in the West 
Indies and Spanish Honduras. He was not a man 
one could ever make friends with, but he was a 
highly interesting acquaintance, — all precision and 
exactness, — a mathematical machine, highly pol- 
ished, and running noiselessly. I thought it strange 
that he paid little attention to Japan, — which he 
had only touched at on his way to India. But short 
as was his stay at Yokohama, he knew all about the 
principal mercantile houses there. 

Now, don't you feel bored with all this? Well, I 
just wanted to hint of my experiences, as typical. 
I discovered something else, too. — Since my hair 
has turned grey, I find I get along better than I 
used to do among absolute strangers. Grey hair 
gives a suggestion of wisdom, of experience which 
may or may not be true, but always secures a little 
consideration. — And one other thing struck me^ 
when all of us second-class passengers were ordered 
rather coarsely to keep away from the first-class 
deck — that it is good to be very poor, and good to 
he very rich; but that to be neither rich nor poor is 
the unforgivable sin. For the steerage passengers, 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAE^ 367 

— Chinese especially — were allowed more privileges 
than we. 

To-day I am sending some books to you, and 
some, separately, to Mason. The wonderful study 
of Napoleon, by Taine, is in that volume (5) of the 
" Origines "entitled " Le Regime Moderne. " I would 
advise you to begin the set with that. I send also 
"La Cite Antique;" and the last volume written by 
Maupassant ("LTnutile Beaute") just before his 
madness. It is noteworthy that there are two stud- 
ies of insanity in this volume, — one of which, about 
le monstre a crdne-de-lune, might have been written 
in an asylum. But neither of these compares with 
the awful sketch "Le Juge" — in "La Petite Roque." 

I would like you to read the whole of these stories 
line by line. Maupassant may sometimes be dis- 
gusting, but he has splendid psychological percep- 
tions at times, — and his commentaries and argu- 
ments are, I think, the most valuable part of his 
work. But I must stop for to-day, though I have 
much more to say. 

With all pleasant and grateful memories,^ 
Faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

August 12, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Yours of the 8th just at 
hand. By this time you will have my letter and the 
books. I did not get home for just a week, you 
know, — leaving on the 31st (Monday) and reach- 
ing Kumamoto only on the night of Saturday. 

The heat has been terrible, and night before last 



868^ LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

we had thirty-five ( ! !) shocks of earthquake — the 
first of which was violent enough to break the kabe. 
We had to pass the night in the garden. All this is 
atrocious. 

I don't mind tropical heat, — because there is 
ample consolation in the splendour of tropical light 
and colour, and wondrous vegetation. But this dead 
oven heat is tiresome, — prevents thinking. To 
write the name Kumamoto now is disagreeable — 
the feeling is that one has toward the names of cer- 
tain unpleasant people one tries to forget, and dis- 
likes the mention of. The old sensation of nervous 
lonesomeness enveloped me just like a black atmo- 
sphere after my return, and stays with me. I am 
tortured by the mere repetition of this question, 
always recurring," How long can I bear this?" But 
what else can I do? — except leave the country. 

Enough of this, however. — Let me disagree with 
you. I think you are perhaps strongly under the 
influence of the 18th century in poetry, — you are a 
classic, I am not. I detest the 18th century, and I 
cannot believe that one true line of poetry could be 
found from the first page of Pope to the last. I 
should call everything Pope ever wrote tiresome 
bald prose. I am speaking, of course, a little strongly 
— would modify the last statement in respect to 
values, if considering the literary influence of 
Pope at length. But I cannot think Pope ever felt 
an emotion. To me emotion, uttered with power, 
touched with natural rhythm and colour, is poetry; 
and form is not poetry at all. The prose of the Eng- 
lish Bible; the prose of Kingsley's "Heroes;" the 



^ 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 369 

prose of Ruskin betimes, is the noblest of poetry. 
Or take the prose-line of the translated Arabian 
thought about the desolate site of the camp "when 
the north wind and the south have woven the 
twisted sand," — in all Pope what touches it? Now 
"The Song of the Camp" contains true feehng; and 
though you are quite right in judging all Bayard 
Taylor's work as second-rate (indeed you might 
have said third-rate), I think there is fine emotion 
all through the book, — gold strands to be picked 
out here and there. Don't you think that if we keep 
to the masterpieces only, we must lose a great deal 
of that which is most beautiful and original in hu- 
man utterance? For all deep-souled men — how- 
ever'unlettered — are betimes poets, and utter poetry 
worth remembrance; and the second-rates and the 
third-rates, if sifted, give us pearls and rubies 
and emeralds. Miller has written much trash, — 
nevertheless to read Miller is to receive a world of 
new sensations. 

It is true that much of Pope cannot be thought 
of out of the form in which he cast and froze it. 
But is not this true even of proverbs in rhyme? — 
which are prosy enough — especially the musical 
Spanish ones — 

Con la mujer y el dinero 
No te burlas, compauero. 

Byron was strongly under Pope's influence; but he 
had passion, enormous force, a colossal imagina- 
tion. Therefore, in the true sense of poetry, I would 
think the "Siege of Corinth" — even fifty lines 
from it — worth more than all Pope's work. 



370 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Well, I suppose we really agree at bottom — 
except about the value to literature of inferior poets. 
With kindest remembrances, 

Lafcadio. 

August 21, 1894. ' 

Dear Chamberlain, — I can't quite under- 
stand about Welsh being written phonetically — 
how about "cwrw"? — beer, isn't it? I used to 
live in Wales. As a child my folks passed all their 
summers at Bangor, — where we used to hire 
donkey-phaetons and bathe and have a good time. 
Retired Indian oflScers in multitude used to be 
visible there, — and some used to tell me queer 
stories. I was then regarded as a pampered little 
heir to wealth and luxury, and I got wonderful 
petting from beautiful ladies, who would not like 
to see me now. — Carnarvon Castle was a favourite 
visit. I used to climb the Eagle-tower, and look 
down upon the crawling of the ships. I remember 
a white peacock there. — In Carnarvon also I had 
my first knowledge of the farther East. One year 
I lived there all alone with my nurse in the cottage 
of a seaman of some sort, — he was on the Chinese 
run ; and every time he came back he used to bring 
all sorts of curious things from China, — porce- 
lains, grotesques, gods. These were piled upon a 
great "dresser" reaching nearly to the ceiling. I 
used to look at them with awe, and dream about 
them at night. — My nurse used to be able, though 
a Connaught girl, to understand the speech of the 
country folk. These would come into town in their 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 371 

witch-hats, — a fashion preserved from the sixteenth 
century, I think, — wearing frilled caps under the 
hats. — Wliat very happy times those were! — they 
gave no augury of the years of nightmare to follow. 

I am trying to prepare those ballads for the A. S., 
but it goes against the grain. The ballads are all 
right, but should be well supplied with notes, which 
I am not competent to make; and I've lost all inter- 
est in the material. It appeals to no feeling. It is 
folk-lore of the baldest narrative kind. However, 
I'll try to make some sort of an introduction, and 
then send you the thing by parcel-post — or, if you 
don't wish to look at it, I '11 send to Mason — for 
though very clearly written, the MS. might tire 
your eyes. 

I am sorry you have so much trouble with your 
eyes. I fear you must lose the chief part of pleasure 
in reading, by having a student read to you — es- 
pecially the French. I can't help thinking this may 
have been a reason for disliking Gautier's tales. 
They are not adapted, I think, for being heard, — 
the blaze of colour, the ghostly delicacy of word- 
mosaic, and the whole rhythm of the sentences, 
address themselves best to the eye and to silence. — ■ 
Were I independent of teaching, and nearer to you, 
what a pleasure it would give me to read something 
wonderful to you occasionally. I had a dear old 
friend in America, who taught me printing. He 
had a great big silent office, and every evening for 
two years, it was our delight to have such reading. 
I read nearly all the old Atlantic stories to him — at 
that time, you know, the Atlantic was the medium 



372 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

of Emerson, of Holmes, of every man distinguished 
in American letters. The old man was something 
of a Fourierist. In his office I made acquaintance 
first with hosts of fantastic heterodoxies, — Fourier 
himself, Hep worth Dixon ("Spiritual Wives"), the 
Spiritualists, the Freelovers, and the Mormons, — 
the founders of phalansteries and the founders of 
freelove societies. 

I don't know whether my fellow travellers were 
anarchists. They might have been, though. They 
spoke very eloquently about the religion of human- 
ity and the atrocities of modern civilization. I 
sympathized with them. I shall always sympathize 
with anarchy and nihilism while I am unable to get 
large chances in life. — You remember the story — 
the fact rather — about the Nihilist or Anarchist 
sheet published some years ago. One morning the 
paper appeared in mourning with a farewell edition, 
saying: — 

"We are sorry to announce our inability to con- 
tinue the publication of the . The editor has 

decamped. A vile traitor to the cause, a selfish 
hypocrite; — having been left by his uncle the 
sum of £300 a year, he has declared that his senti- 
ments have changed, and that he sympathizes 
with the bloated bondholders and aristocrats. Fear- 
ing our just vengeance, he has fled." 

Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 

Dear Chamberlain, — So glad to get your let- 
ter — I was a little uneasy, fearing that some 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 373 

sudden change in temperature might have had un- 
pleasant consequences: for the weather is terribly 
treacherous now, and we shall all have to be very 
careful indeed at the fall season. — Here the heat 
is thick and solid at night, but the land-breeze blows 
twice a day — and I have the privilege of living 
naked, with only a koshimaki. To wear any cos- 
tume now would be decidedly disagreeable, and 
signify a constant drenching. 

Oh! I am so glad you liked the "Red Bridal," — 
an awfully dangerous experiment, and one I know 
you would not have encouraged in advance. I shall 
attempt very little in that line, though. Perhaps 
you are right about the metaphysical conversation, 
though nearly all the thoughts are based on notes 
taken from Japanese conversation. I have struck 
out a few lines for the book-form — lines or touches, 
thrown in by myself. 

The little Creole pamphlets I send you, and the 
"Flying Trip round the World," and the Lotis and 
the novels, are for your library, of course. Don't 
think of sending them back. I read "Au Maroc" 
through, with a sort of half -scared pleasure; and the 
impression is lasting. Although purely personal 
work, it seems to me a very perfect book of travel. 
I slipped into it a note from Pierre Loti. Perhaps 
you would like to keep a specimen of his chirography . 

What you said about the Welsh was very illum- 
inating: I could understand many things at once 
through those few lines of yours. How very curi- 
ously the value of letters changes in certain tongues ! 
— By the way, when I was in Wales, excellent daily 



374 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

papers were published in Welsh. Perhaps these still 
exist. If you study Welsh, as a living tongue, per- 
haps it would interest you to see a few copies of 
those curious papers. 

Yes, indeed, there is an astonishing parallelism 
between the classic French and classic English — 
the Drydens and Popes with their satellites, and 
the Racines, Corneilles, and Boileaux, etc., with 
theirs. Boileau seems to me most worthy of com- 
parison with Pope. But what a delight to turn from 
these fettered giants to wild freedom of the Roman- 
tic schools, and the later imitations of it in England! 
The monotony of Pope and Boileau tire me awfully 
— like the perpetual beating of a drum without 
orchestra. 

By the way, did you ever wonder how the old 
English Bible translators ever managed to get that 
splendid hexameter (is n't it.^) — 

God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a 
trumpet ! 

And is n't it greater than any line in PopeP^ 

Have you read Murger's "Scenes de la Vie de 
Boheme," Kompert's "Scenes du Ghetto".'' 

All of Kompert is good, — but I only suggest one 
for trial : the greatest Jewish story-writer of the age. 
Murger, I think, you have read; but should you 
have missed it, please get it, and have a delightful 
mixture of humour — uproarious humour — and pro- 
found but simple pathos. It also is one of the great 
books of the century — not perfect in style — but 
so human: it is to prose what much of Beranger's 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 375 

work is to French song. All the works of these two 
writers (Levy Freres) are issued at one franc each. 
And pray, fray don't forget, when you order books 
again, Gerard de Nerval's "Filles de Feu." (Levy, 
one franc.) One of the Daughters of Fire (a dream) 
inspired what has entered into French literature as 
one of the most perfect of all essays on the romantic 
ballads of mediaeval France. Let me suggest also 
Maupassant's "Des Vers." I have not read them, 
but I trust Saintsbury's enthusiasm about them. 

I am just finishing a little paper *'Yuko," story 
of the girl who cut her throat that the Emperor 
might cease to sorrow (May, 1891), mere narrative, 
with philosophical reflections. — I fear you will be 
disappointed with my "ballads" — the work was 
altogether beyond my powers. I sent to 19 Akasaka 
— so that you should not have the trouble of look- 
ing at them till the weather got cool. — Should you 
condemn them, however, I may try to offer, later, 
a decent version of a rather dry but very curious 
Buddhist book — "The Story of the Humming of 
the Sainokawara." Curious phrase. There is a 
Polynesian song, quoted by Giles, which has in 
a refrain the words, "Listen to the humming of the 
ghosts." And curiously also, I found the word used 
in the same sense by the blacks of Martinique. 
(Earthquakes every night nearly.) Have discovered 
a new weird Shinto God — Shinigami. 

Faithfully, Lafcadio. 

P. S. I have stacks of MS. Creole compositions 
taken down from dictation — folk-songs, stories. 



376 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

samples of conversation. All these are at your dis- 
posal, to keep, if you ever want them. 

Note. — The essay by Dr. Mercier (now dead) 
is the best, and I believe the only good paper in 
the Louisiana patois. I don't like Fortier's article, 
and I don't think it is correct. He elaborates Creole 
into a complexity the spoken tongue never possesses 
in black mouths. 

September 6, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — The Imperial gift came, 
— through the Governor of Shimane and through 
the kenchi of Kumamoto, — a very handsome sake- 
cup of red lacquer with the Kiri-mon therein in 
letters of gold. This was accompanied by a very 
handsome document from the Governor of Shimane, 
stating the why and the wherefore. — Pleasant, of 
course, — but probably the last pleasant thing that 
I will have in Japan. 

My robber had very large feet: "stately stepped 
he east the way, and stately stepped he west," — 
and the Junsa took a proof of his soles on a piece of 
paper, and we burned many moxa upon the tracks, 
that his feet might become sore. Perhaps this is 
why he was riding all over town yesterday in a 
kuruma, trying to sell my watch. Curious, the 
police have not caught him yet. 

The soldiers are being addressed by Buddhist 
priests, and consecrated to Amida by the laying of 
a razor on each head — symbolic tonsure. The 
sword and helmet of Kato Kiyomasa are said to 
have disappeared from Homnyoji and to have been 
sent to Korea. 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 377 

Autumn has begun. I hope your throat is better. 
It occurred to me, since my last, that the long con- 
versations in the raw mountain air, on the porch 
at night, might have been as tiring as they were 
pleasant. When I have to talk in the class for an 
hour without stopping, I feel it afterwards in 
hoarseness and fits of coughing. 

Yours very faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

September 11, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Glad to get even a line 
from you — though it has not brought me as good 
news of you as I could wish. Perhaps it is only the 
unsettled weather: the clear autumn may bring 
back strength. 

I was interested by Lowell's letter. Since I first 
read of Schiaparelli's discovery, I had always won- 
dered why different astronomers could not agree on 
the character of the so-called canals, — many pro- 
nouncing them double, others single. Lowell would 
seem really to have hit the cause. — What are the 
canals? Are they canals, or only the lines of a mon- 
strous planetary breaking-up? 

I have just sent off another sketch, "A Wish Ful- 
filled" — the story of one day of a Japanese soldier. 

Lord! Lord! what is morality.?* Nature's law — 
the cosmic law — is struggle, cruelty, pain — every- 
thing religion declares essentially immoral. The 
bird devours the fly, the cat the bird. Everything 
has been shaped, evolved, developed by atrocious 
immorality. Our lives are sustained only by mur- 



378 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

der. Passions are given, which, if satisfied, would 
stifle the earth with population, were there not 
other passions of cruelty and avarice to counteract 
them. Perhaps it is the higher morality that the 
strong races should rob the weak — deprive them 
of liberties and rights — compel them to adopt 
beastly useless conventions — insult their simple 
faith — force upon them not the higher pleasures 
but the deeper pains of an infinitely more com- 
plicated and more unhappy civilization. 

There certainly is no answer to this. It is contrary 
to all our inborn feeling of right. But what is that 
feeling? Only the necessary accompaniment of a 
social state. Does it correspond to any supreme law 
of the universe? — or is it merely relative? We 
know it is relative; we don't know anything about 
the ultimate laws. The God of the Universe may be 
a Devil, — only mocking us with contradictions, — 
forcing us through immeasurable pain to supreme 
efforts which are to end in nothing but the laughter 
of skulls in a world's dust. Who knows? — We are 
only what we can't help being. 

From remote time all my ancestors were in the 
army. Yet to kill the fly that buzzes round me as I 
write this letter seems to me wrong. To give pain 
knowingly, even to one whom I dislike, gives more 
pain to myself. Psychology tells me the why — the 
origin of the feeling. But not by any such feeling 
is the world ruled — or will so be ruled for incal- 
culable time. Such dispositions are counted worth- 
less and weak, and are unfitted for the accomplish- 
ment of large things. Yet all religions teach the 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN S79 

cultivation of the very qualities that ruin us. Clever 
men always follow the forms and laugh at the spirit. 
— Out of all this enormous and unspeakably cruel 
contradiction, what is to come? A golden age/ some 
say. But what good will that do us? — and what 
good will it do any one — since it must pass accord- 
ing to inevitable laws? — I understand the laws, their 
results. But what is their meaning? What is right? 
What is wrong? Why should there be laws at all? 

(I must try to get James Hinton's "Mystery of 
Pain," to see if he can throw any light on the mat- 
ter.) 

We are all tired of Kumamoto. I must try to get 
out of it this year or next year. I am almost certain, 
however, that I had better go to America for a time. 
One does not isolate one's self from the Aryan race 
without paying the penalty. You could not know 
what it means, unless you had borne it long; — the 
condition is unspeakable. You say I work well. If 
I did not, I should go insane, or become a prey to 
nervous disease. Perhaps the suffering has been 
good in this — that it has forced me to literary dis- 
cipline which I could not otherwise have obtained. 
To write three volumes in five years (for my new 
book is almost done) really means a good deal — 
teaching besides. But Kumamoto, what with earth- 
quakes, robbers, and thunderstorms, is my realiza- 
tion of a prison in the bottom of hell. I would be 
glad of half the salary with half as much more peace 
of mind. 

Is it selfish to tell you my feelings? It would be, 
perhaps, if you were feeling gloriously well, — but 



380 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

as you also have some trouble, — perhaps more 
suffering from illness than you ever speak of, — you 
will have the grim comfort of knowing that one not 
sick at all thinks of your existence as the seventh 
heaven, — as the life of Haroun Al Raschid, — as 
the luxury of the most fortunate of the fortunate 
khalifs of Bagdad. 

Faithfully, with best wishes, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I did a man unwittingly 
injustice — gross injustice! — in my last letter to 
you. Fardel's handwriting is so bad, that I really 
mistook his meaning, and am delighted to find that 
his declaration of position was exactly the opposite 
to what I had made him say, and what vexed me at 
the time so much that I drafted a protest. He has 
not yet, as I feared, been devoured by the Philis- 
tines. But the prejudice of which he spoke, and my 
comments thereon, seem to be as I put them. 

This was really all I meant to say, and I hope no 
one but you saw my horrible mistake. You might 
scold 'me severely for it, and I should be as sub- 
missive as Kipling's "Mowgli" when he took his 
whipping like a man. 

I've learned nearly all of Kipling's ballads by 
heart, and am every day more and more amazed 
at their power. If you have only read them once, 
try a second reading, and see how they strike you. 
They gain every time. I must have read them over 
ten times. The way they get into memory comes in 
sleep. I wake up repeating such lines as — 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 381 

There's a wheel on the Horns of the mornin', an' a wheel on the 

edge of the Pit, 
And a drop into nothing beneath you, as straight as a beggar can 

spit . . . 

What a curious sense of individual knowledge 
the thing gives. Every man in these ballads is a 
different character, and yetjntensely real. The 
"Mandalay" ballad is the utterance of a dreamy, 
good-natured trooper, — "Gunga Din" is that of an 
aggressive brute, — "The Widow's Party" is that 
of the sullen, hard, bulldog soldier, — "Troopin*" 
and others represent totally different, light, jolly 
characters. Great is K. 

L. H. 

September 12, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Your letter certainly 
does place the treaty in a most unfavourable light, 
as regards Things-as-they-are. And I suppose that 
is the only way to look at the matter after a gen- 
eration: Things-as-they-should -be having gone to 
oblivion. Also you rather quickly dispose of my 
supposition about the supreme future power of 
invested foreign capital. Well, I suppose it is the 
last grip of the jiujutsu; and my article still holds 
good, in that event. But there are two strong possi- 
bilities — no, three — against the treaty going into 
operation : — 

(1) That other European powers will agree to 
no such terms, — and that the United States will 
very energetically oppose them. 

(2) That the foreign colonies will make their 
claims heard to some purpose in an effectual protest. 



> 



S82 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

(3) That the sense of the Japanese nation, the 
instinct of the masses, will oppose the treaty as on 
former occasions — blindly — in spite of any and all 
reasoning. 

Besides, there is the war-sphinx whose questions 
have not yet been answered. 

No, I did not intend to take part with the officials. 
I did not even think of them. I thought emotion- 
ally of the common people only — those who would 
suffer — the fairy -folk who perform miracles on a 
diet of rice, with their "pathetic pleasures" (Pater), 
their innocent faith, their love of the dead, their 
little shrines, their temples — the antique world 
which has not yet vanished, nor been injured by 
ridicule of shallow-pated missionaries. I thought 
of these toiling in stinking factories, under foreign 
employ; — I thought of utilitarian transformation 
and destruction (artistically) of the porcelain and 
lacquer industries; — I thought of all the horrors 
of American industrial life forced into Japan. . . . 
I shall always love the common Japan: there is 
plenty of it — 40,000,000 of it. — You should really 
live among it alone for a year, — and you would not 
feel lonely. It is only after a long time that the 
lonesomeness comes. If the treaty could save this 
life intact, I should be glad. But I fear that the 
future demoralization of Japan is to be effected by 
Japanese in frock-coats and loud neckties. That will 
be infinitely worse. 

I can't stand them. I must get out of the country 
for a time. I feel, much more than you could have 
thought, your words about "white men." Yes, I 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 383 

I would rather work for white men of almost any 
kind — though there are mean kinds enough — than 
under these. . . . 

I'm glad I have a young man in the house. He 
is wonderfully handy, and makes the most beautiful 
toys for the child I ever saw. 

You did n't congratulate me on the sake-cup. 
Perhaps such presents are very common. Don't tell 
me the missionaries get them, or I shall "howl a 
whoop, and with the howlment of the whoop shall 
yip a yawp!" 

How is this definition by a Japanese student .^^ — 
"A friend is one person to whom we can tell all our 
suspicions." 

Faithfully, with best wishes, 

Lafcadio. 

September 22, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — If I did not feel a certain 
awe of you, I should say "What a dear fellow you 
are!" You knew that sake-cup was a farce — it is 
No. 5 and cost $1.25. But you were too sweet to 
tell me. The Japanese friend to whom I wrote an 
exquisite message for the Governor of Shimane, 
couched in high-court style, was much less con- 
siderate. He frankly laughed at me and at the 
sake-cup, and told me also about an Evangelical 
temperance society having been embarrassed by the 
Imperial gift of a sake-cup of silver. . , , Ah bah! 
all this world is illusion. 

I have definitely accepted the Kobe offer, and 
anticipate misery. Still, any sort of change is a 



384 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

relief. After the Prophet lay upon his left side for 
three hundred and ninety days to bear the iniquity 
of the house of Israel, he was quite glad to lie three 
hundred and ninety days on his right side to bear 
the calamity of the house of Judah; and he was grate- 
ful to the Lord. 

I have just sent off my eleventh paper, finishing 
my second book on Japan, as I am limited to 70,000 
words. I suggested for a title, "Out of the East." 
(Ex Oriente lux?) . . . 

And now I shall try at least to get material for 
open -port sketches. 

"In Yokohmam" is a Buddhist paper, — a con- 
versation with an old priest. Amenomori helped me 
magnificently with it — answering questions in the 
most beautiful way. His MS. is a wonder in itself. 
Any man who can write such English as Ameno- 
mori, and think so profoundly, ought to be able to 
render the " Tao-te-king " into perfect French. May 
the Buddha forgive me for all the wrong I have done 
others in thought and word, and charge up my sin 
to the illusions and bewilderments of this beastly 



universe 



I sent an Atlantic the other day. The last instal- 
ment of "Philip and his Wife" seems to me almost 
a miracle. I would also recommend the paper on 
Plato — conventionally managed, but within narrow 
limits extremely clever. . . . 

If I did not have to work to keep up I should be 
very unhappy at all this. In the whole United 
States there is now not one single publication of the 
first-class entirely under liberal control. Is the case 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAm 385 

any better in England, — when Frederic Harrison 
must write side by side with the Right Reverend 
Jack-in-t he-Box, — and an essay by Spencer must 
be controverted by His Grace the Archbishop of 
Croquemitaine, — and the Gladstone Skeleton must 
be dragged into utterance as a respectable denuncia- 
tion of Huxley's common-sense? Is the whole world 
going back into the dark ages again, — through the 
mere demoralizing effect of that centralization of 
wealth and of conventionalism following upon the 
solidification or stratification of society? How 
much better seems to me the wild days of Mormon 
evangelization in America, — of the Freelove pha- 
lansteries, — of Brook Farm and the Oneida Com- 
munity, — of Hep worth Dixon's "Spiritual Wives " ! 
Humbug, of course, but what a finely fluid aspira- 
tional condition of society the whole thing meant, 
— even with "Mr. Sludge, the Medium" thrown 
in! Anything is better than the crystallization of 
ideas, the hardening of conventions, the recognized 
despair of thinkers to oppose the enormous weight 
and power of Philistinism. ''You!'* — said a Jew 
to me long ago (a Jew with Heine's soul, and 
therefore now dead and double-damned) — ''You 
fight society. Oh, you fly! the elephant's foot will 
crush you without feeling you.'* — What matter! 
In those days being supremely an ass as well as 
a fly, I thought I could overturn the universe. I 
was a new Archimedes: the lever was enthusiasm! 
all radicals were my brothers, and had I been 
in Russia I might have tried to blow up the 
Czar. 



886 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

All this reminds me that Fardel, replying to a let- 
ter as to whether he could take my place here (he 
says he can), writes to me quite needlessly about the 
Eurasian question and about his "martyrdom in 
fighting seven years against a social wrong," — the 
Eurasian party representing the wrong. He has 
become evidently fige. . . . Thinking over the 
matter, I cannot help admiring the d — d Jesuits. 
There race-feeling is trampled out of a man's soul; 
— there the conventions of society are subjected ut- 
terly to one spiritual though fanatical idea; — there 
is religious democracy — equality — fraternity ; — 
there no moral question is caught up as a hypo- 
crite's mask for race-hate. I almost wish I could 
believe, and hie me to a monastery, or preach Rome 
on the banks of the Amazon. 

Oh! this is a blue letter, — and you have 
been so kind, — sending telegrams and everything! 
Never mind, I'll try to make it up to you some day. 
I am going to try to flee soon. 

With best regards and ever so many warm thanks, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

October 2, 1894. 

^Dear Chamberlain, — Thanks for the Spec- 
tator. I liked the poem, and would like to read that 
interesting book by Crooke. I used to get every- 
thing of that kind. 

Writing now about Watson, I can only remember 
the impression of the poem thus : — 

(1) Attention — (2) concentration of mind on sub- 
ject — (3) impression of commonplace correctness 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 387 

with certainty of a last surprise — (4) surprise in 
last stanza — little ghostly thrill of pleasure. 

But — I could not remember what the pleasure 
was without reading the poem again. I have the 
memory of a sensation, not the memory of a thought. 
And this is the way Watson generally impresses me 

— except in the "Dream of Man," which is a mas- 
terpiece of fancy, but a weak piece of verse. (I 
think there are fully a score of bad lines in it.) 
Wherefore Watson seems to me one of those that 
will never reach beyond the verge of greatness. 
Really, we have no more great poets now. Swin- 
burne only reechoes himself in the frost of his age. 
Henley approaches W^atson in power, — but power 
of a different sort, rather realistic. Lang and Dob- 
son are exquisite — but it is all rococo — stucco 
and paint. Civilization is stagnant: there are none 
of those motions which stir below the vast surface, 

— no race-feelings, — therefore none of the large 
sensations which made the song of the past. Amer- 
ica has no poets of high degree, — nor France, — 
nor any other country just now. The beauty is 
going out of human life — only tones, faint shades, 
faint ghostly thrills remain, betimes to make one 
remember that which has departed. 

The book on India might suggest a book on Japan. 
I think there would be no money in it, though : — 
there is no money in anything but fiction, — and 
that only for a few. However, what struck me after 
reading the article was this: — "What a book I 
could NOW write about a Roman Catholic country, 
like Mexico, after having lived in Japan." In order 



S88 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

to write well about Catholicism, one must have 
studied paganism outside of it. The whole poetry 
of the thing then appears. Who can really feel the 
poetry of the Bible except the man who is not a 
Christian? Well, is n't it the same way with other 
matters? Roman Catholicism in some Latin coun- 
tries, — with its vast world of ghosts, saints, evil 
and good spirits at each man's elbow, — its visions, 
its miracles, its skulls and bones enshrined in sil- 
ver and gold, — its cruelties and consolations, — its 
lust-exasperating asceticisms that create tempta- 
tions, — surely to understand it all one must have 
felt either the life of the pagan or polytheistic 
Orient, or understand profoundly the polytheism of 
the antique West. A book on Latin life — studied 
through polytheistic feeling, sympathetic feeling 
— would certainly be a novelty. Strange sensations 
might be evoked, — new even to the nineteenth 
century. j.^^^, faithfully, 

Lafcadio. 

We're beginning to pack up. I'm sick — not 
attending school, just pleasantly sick. I thank the 
Gods therefor. 

Oh! I am rather angry with the Gods. I have 
been fighting their battles ; but they don't listen to 
me any more. Perhaps they are all rusu — away in 
Korea — and did not hear. 

October 9. 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — Having a moment's leis- 
ure, permit me to say that your last letter is, ac- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 389 

cording to synthetic philosophy, contrary to scien- 
tific position. The examples you cite by Dr. Tylor 
would prove exactly the contrary to the theory they 
are intended to sustain. The incoherent character 
of the myth in New Zealand folk-lore, compared 
with the coherent character of a similar myth in 
Sanscrit folk-lore, would argue the priority for New 
Zealand, if it argued anything at all — that is to 
say, at least, it would argue that the myth re- 
tained its primitive form among the savages and lost 
it among the civilized — supposing a community of 
origin, which is disputable and improbable. 

The fact seems to me to be simply this, that 
modern philology — seriously to its own cost — still 
ignores the application of evolution to sociology. 
Tylor has been severely criticized on this head; 
but nearly all the big philologists and no small 
number of the folk-lorists remain in the same posi- 
tion. Philologists as a special class have not had 
until within very late years any reason to trouble 
themselves about the tendency of modern philo- 
sophy; and they have stuck to the theories of the 
Middle Ages: the idea of an Eden-centre, whence 
radiations of development, and the absurd theory 
of a degradation of man from a high state of arm- 
in-arm-walking-with-God knowledge. All this must 
be changed ; for the philologist of to-day who under- 
takes the serious mastery of the new philosophy 
gains power to smash out of existence ninety-nine 
of every hundred theories brought up by men of the 
Edkins species. It is a great pity that Tylor and 
others will stick at the spiritual side of evolution — 



390 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

like Max Mliller. The fact necessarily delays pro- 
gress, compelling a process of investigation as con- 
trary to the natural order of things as looking 
through the large end of a telescope. To accurately 
judge any folk-lore or myth, we must begin with 
the evolutional order of fancies, — the beliefs about 
shadows preceding all beliefs in ghosts, — and the 
beliefs in ghosts preceding the belief in Gods. And 
the proofs of the truth of this system are in Japan 
all about us. 

Of course I do not mean to say that the study of 
borrowings is not of the highest importance. I 
think the introduction to your "Kojiki" is most 
probably right in every particular as to the unre- 
corded antiquity of Chinese influence. Still, I am 
not sure. Coming from a common stock, the resem- 
blance of a Japanese to a Chinese myth would not 
involve the belief that the one was borrowed from 
the other. Let me cite an example. The belief in 
the Nukekuhi I myself discovered in Japan (not first, 
perhaps, but I found it and studied it). Well — in a 
little French book (translated mostly from ancient 
Chinese) '* Les Peuples Etrangers comme des Anciens 
Chinois" (Leroux's " Bibliotheque Orientale ") I 
find the same superstition mentioned, illustrated 
with curious Chinese engravings. Must I infer that 
the Japanese borrowed this myth from China.'* 
Certainly not, — and I believe the contrary. Such 
superstitions are of the most primitive class, and 
were probably held by this people ten thousand 
years before coming to Japan. I use big figures. 
But we must now accept the fact of man's existence 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 391 

on the planet, as Man (not ape) for more than 
500,000 years. 

I am sure that if you would read systematically 
Spencer's first volume of Sociology you would find 
reasons for agreeing with me. But of course you 
would have to confess all religions as religions mere 
evolutional growths out of childish fear and fancy. 
Hence it requires courage to take the position pub- 
licly. 

Lafcadio. 

P. S. ... Wrote note to Aldrich — hoping you 
will see him. Gave him your address. He is all that 
you would like and nothing that you would dislike. 

(His first letter from Kobe on taking up news- 
paper work there. Rec'd at the Yaama Hotel, 
Kyoto, 14th Oct. 1894.) 

Dear Chamberlain, — I can't guess whom to be 
vexed with — you or Mason ; but I have been feel- 
ing resentful. Both of you knew, or ought to have 
known, that I was in the Kwakto-Jigoku for two 
years, but neither of you would move a pen to help 
me out of it. Well, I suppose you consulted over 
together (unfair ! — two against one !) and concluded 
it was best to let me stick it out. And it was, — • 
since it forced me out of a service which has become 
unbearable. Still, I feel a little mad at you both. 
For either of you I should have broken my back to 
help if necessary, without waiting for finely detailed 
explanations. 



392 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Yes, and I hold the black end of the poker always 
in correspondence! Ay de mi! Still, you are much 
better in that regard than Mason and others. 
Mason writes monthly, — with business regularity, 
though happily not with a business soul. You do 
write oftener, much oftener; but not often enough. 
I am getting exacting, you see. 

My associate in the Chronicle is Secularian. He 
is a young, vigorous Scotchman, of the half -dark 
type, — grey eyes and black hair. I liked him at 
first shake-hands, which is a great thing. We shall 
get along socially. About the financial question, 
I can't see glory ahead, — but I am with clean- 
souled Englishmen anyhow. 

I I met a missionary on the boat running to Kobe 
'and liked him — the first of his kind. A great big 
fellow, six feet three — and fresh-hearted, and frank, 
and innocent as a boy. I explained some things to 
him, and showed him some which he had never 
looked at (such as Japanese sake), and almost felt 
fond of him. What a pity such men can find no 
better calling! He had had his troubles, too, — 
tried to win hearts, and learned to wonder whether 
gratitude existed in the Japanese soul. 

Hotels here infernally dear — four to seven dol- 
lars a day. Still, if you pass Kobe after I am settled 
here, I shall expect a call. In another fortnight all 
will be arranged; and I shall be well able to make 
you cosy with us. 

I cannot think less of Loti's genius. . . . Cold- 
blooded he seems of course, and personally detest- 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 393 

able he very probably is, and his life not at all 
limpid by our standards. But what matter! Drop 
the shell of the man, — the outer husk, on which the 
vices are mere lichen-growths; — and within glows 
the marvellous, subtle, luminous- winged soul of the 
Latin race, — of Latin art, — of Latin love of life 
and youth and all things beautiful. I will select 
pages from the "Fleurs d'Ennui," from "Le Roman 
d'un Spahi," from "Le Mariage de Loti," — and 
defy any other living man to equal them. Neither 
our De Quinceys nor our Coleridges nor our Byrons 
could have written such things — prose more poet- 
ical than all English poetry — prose more lumin- 
ous and penetratingly sweet than Tennyson's best 
verse. (De Nerval is the only other who has ap- 
proached Loti.) Of course 1 do not mean to say that 
an art wholly based upon nervous susceptibility is 
the ultimate art. It cannot be. But we need it. 
The spiritual is based on the physical; the moral is 
based on the physical; the aspirational is based on 
the physical. We need such instrumentation. We 
need the means. The purification will come later. 
At present we have the highest aspirations, the 
deepest potentialities, — we Northern men. But 
however much better morally we flatter ourselves 
to be, we are still, all of us, — Russians, English, or 
Scandinavians, — mere sucking babes in the know- 
ledge of art as compared with the Latins. An Italian 
fruit-vendor has more sense of beauty than a mem- 
ber of our Parliament, — a beggar of Piedmont 
more musical sense than the average graduate of 
an English musical college. 



394 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Oh ! the book by De Rosny does not belong to the 
Maisonneuve Collection, but to the Leroux Collec- 
tion. De Rosny has nothing in the former. The 
former (of which I sent only one poor sample) has 
all the Breton literature, including songs and music, 
— Maspero's translations of the old Egyptian 
ghost-stories, the Hitopadesa, and a host of things. 
But both collections are worth having. 
Ever yours, 

Lafcadio. 

Kobe, October 23, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — You asked for my other 
address, which I enclose in Japanese — but I don't 
think it will be good for more than six months, as I 
hope to build a house here this winter, — fit even 
to receive the Emeritus Professor of Japanese in 
the Imperial University of Japan. My present home 
is a nondescript building, foreign upstairs and in- 
digenous downstairs — barring the benjo; — the up- 
stairs rooms are fixed for stoves and are warm, and 
I have indulged in a debauchery of cheap carpets, 
mattings, and furniture. My employer and his wife 
were very good to us; — Mrs. H. has been petted 
and helped and invited about, and everything was 
got for us at a bargain. 

I think this a very pleasant position — the most 
pleasant I ever had in my life; for I am treated not 
as an employee, but as a directing spirit in the ofiice, 
and as a brother outside of it. Of course I don't 
know how long I shall feel this way. Human nature 
is full of surprises. But for the time being it is very 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 395 

pleasant; and I would not exchange the place for a 
government post at any price. Perhaps I shall 
think differently later. Faut jamais dire, "Fontaine, 
Je ne boirai plus de ton eau ! " 

Curious. The proprietor began this paper with 
only 1000 yen, and worked it up to a good property. 
His little wife helps him at proof-reading; and 
before I came, they alone ran the whole paper — 
no reporters or assistants. It was terrible work for 
one man, and I could not do it. Young is hearty 
and juvenile in appearance — serious, pleasant face 
— dark beard — used to be a proof-reader on the 
Saturday Review, for which post some culture is 
necessary. Is a straight thorough English radical. 
We are in perfect sympathy upon all questions. 

I wrote to Mason yesterday that Thomas Bailey 
Aldrich is to visit Japan this fall. I should like you 
to know America's greatest "literary man" (if we 
except Holmes and James). He is a very polished 
gentleman; and knows Europe by heart, for he has 
been a great traveller. You ought, I am sure, to 
pass a pleasant hour or two with him. He would 
sit at your feet in the matter of the higher scholar- 
ship; and you would enjoy his knowledge of per- 
sons and places. 

I think your copy of " Glimpses" has been await- 
ing you at Tokyo. 

Faithfully — without reproaches for not touching 

at Kobe, 

Lafcadio. 



396 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

November 3, 1894. 

Dear Chamberlain, — I got your last delightful 
letter in its Japanese envelope. You thought it 
was a poor letter; but what you generally think 
poor I find unusual interest in. There is a deal of 
concentrated penetrative observation in those hast- 
ily written notes of yours which sinks into my mind, 
and is apt to reappear again, after many days, in 
some essay of mine — having by that time become 
so much a part of my own thought that I find it 
difl&cult to establish the boundary-line between 
meum and tuum. Of course one must have lived a 
long time in the country to feel your letters in this 
way. 

Aldrich is at the Grand Hotel, or was, until time 
of this writing. I dropped him a note, expressing 
the hope that he would meet you and Mason. 
He can talk Italy to you. 

I am glad you agree about the Italian and French 
character — the depth, subtlety, and amazing latent 
power of the former; the Greek cast of the latter. 
Yes, I don't think we should disagree much — ex- 
cept as to my firm conviction of the artistic and 
moral value of sensuality. You know in this nine- 
teenth century we are beginning to make war upon 
even intellectual sensuality, the pleasure in emo- 
tional music, the pleasure in physical grace as a 
study, the pleasure in coloured language and musical 
periods. I doubt if this is right. The puritanism 
of intellect is cultivated to the gain of certain de- 
grees of power, but also to the hardening of char- 
acter, — ultimately tending to absolute selfishness 



TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN 397 

and fixity of mental habit. Too deeply fixed in the 
cause of life are the pleasures of sense to be weeded 
out without injury to the life-centres themselves 
and to all the emotions springing from them. We 
cannot attack the physical without attacking the 
moral; for evolutionally all the higher intellectual 
faculties have their origin in the development of the 
physical. . . . 

I send you an Atlantic. Tell me how you like it, 
my little dream. 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



LETTERS TO W. B. MASON 



II 

LETTERS TO W. B. MASON 

Kyoto, July 24, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — Here I am imprisoned by bad 
weather. It was lucky for me, however that I re- 
solved after all to make for Kyoto first, as a fright- 
ful storm has been raging off the Izumo coast. 
Still I have till 10th September free, and hope to 
be in Oki early next month. The exquisite beauty 
of this little hotel compensates somewhat for the 
bad weather. The house dates only from the sev- 
enth Meiji; but it is a curiosity of beauty and inge- 
nuity. Kano recommended it as the most original 
hotel in Kyoto. It is too charming to refer any globe- 
trotter to; they could not by any possible chance 
understand it. The people are rich: the house is 
small; and only a few choice guests are received. 

I liked my Japanese hotel in Kobe, however, — 
the Tokiwasha. Magnificent double room — one 
end fronting the harbour; the other dominating the 
roofs of the city, — and doves nesting in the eaves. 
How beautiful Kobe is! More than Yokohama. 
And the more I see of the open ports the more I feel 
convinced that the Japanese character is too es- 
sentially individual and strong to be overwhelmed 
by foreign influence. Everything characteristically 
and charmingly Japanese accentuates immensely at 
the open ports, as if in defiance of foreign aggres- 



402 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

sion. Architecture improves by becoming at once 
larger — yet more Oriental. — It gave me a sharp 
indescribable sensation to meet Englishmen and 
Scotchmen again after two years in the interior. 
Even a rather cheeky clerk who wanted to sell me 
"a medicated flannel" (may the Gods d — n medi- 
cated flannel) seemed to me a superb creature. 
The old Scotch accent touched me as the sound of 
Scotch bagpipes touched hearts in India. I took my 
wife into some of the stores. She had never seen a 
foreign shop before: it was a fairy world for her. 
A Scotch merchant was amused at her interest in 
simple things, and gave her a pretty present. He 
was a grim man, too; but I liked him for that, and 
bought many things from him. My wife asked me 
this question, "Why is it that you only smile when 
you talk, and all these other foreigners don't smile 
— only their eyes smile?" "That," I answered, 
"is because I have lived so long alone among Jap- 
anese." And I became aware that my ways must 
have seemed a little odd to these serious Highland- 
ers and growling Britons. But that day they all 
appeared lovable. "Absence," etc. 

I have been looking at the obi of Kyoto. We 
have quite as fine kimono-silks in Kumamoto, — 
Osaka fabrics, I think, — but the obi are wonderful. 
Still, although far prettier to the eye, and much 
more costly, they don't compare with the solid 
enduring rich plainness of Hakata work. I want to 
see the temples; but I don't want to see them on 
gloomy days; and it keeps raining; and I am ex- 
tremely angry to no purpose with the weather. 



TO W. B. MASON 403 

Do you want to find out anything about Kyoto? 
If you do, write to me right speedily. I will be here 
another week. And I want to see that village where 
the women are all gigantic and rosy and comely, 
and carry great weights on their heads — the nurses 
of Emperors. Also Nara. I want to live in Kyoto. 
And study Buddhism. But I live in a city where 
they have no temples and no gods — nothing but 
soldiers and the noise of bugles. 
Ever faithfully, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Kyoto, July 30, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — There is a sickening weight in 
the air — that kind of atmospheric pressure which 
makes people despondent and full of the idea that 
something Awful is going to happen. I can't think; 
I can't enjoy anything; I can't say that I liked 
Kyoto as much as I expected. 

First of all, I was tremendously disappointed by 
my inability to discover what Loti described. He 
described only his own sensations: exquisite, weird, 
or wonderful. Loti's "Kioto: La Ville Sainte" has 
no existence. I saw the San-ju-san-gen-do, for 
example: I saw nothing of Loti's — only recognized 
what had evoked the wonderful goblinry of his 
imagination. 

And I tried after three days of temples. I had 
waited until the weather was fine to look at them. 
Well, I was not much impressed. Doubtless be- 
cause I have become too familiar with temples. 
The new Hongwanji I don't care about. It is only 



404 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

large and loud. A Kamakura temple is worth a 
dozen Hongwanji's. Of course the ropes of women's 
hair are touching spectacles. But those only inter- 
ested me. 

The finest temple to my mind, in every way, is 
the Chion-in — where the mighty bell is. The whole 
is magnificently right and harmonious, without 
being vulgar. But the finest thing — except the 
divine gardens — of the Chion-in, is the glorious 
gate, with the extraordinary images and frescoes 
upstairs. These are being defaced by brutal visit- 
ors : no watch is kept to prevent human beasts from 
disfiguring the wall-paintings. How hopelessly in- 
different Buddhism has become about preserving 
its own glorious past! Shinto, on the other hand, 
guards everything with rigid scrutiny, and compels 
respect. Really, I am not of those {now) who regret 
the handing-over of old Buddhist temples to Shinto. 
Shinto has been able to preserve what I feel sure 
Buddhism would not have had the nerve to protect. 
The more I see of Shinto, the more I respect it. 

Then I am tired of looking only at screens — faded 
out of recognizability — painted by Kano Some- 
thing, and the chozubachi in which Hideyoshi 
washed his hands. Vast is the multitude of these. 
Buddhist temples have lost individuality for me. 
They resemble each other like the faces of Japanese 
students. What I am not ever tired of seeing — and 
what is worth, I think, a mention in the Guide- 
Book, is the beauty of the Buddhist gardens. The 
gardens of the temples are more interesting than 
the temples. Also the temple avenues and courts 



TO W. B. MASON 405 

beautify and expand the city — catch and keep the 
sun, and seem to make the air brighter. 

It is at night that Kyoto is most beautiful. The 
street-scenes, the lamps, the delight of the lantern 
files viewed from the Shijo-Ohashi along the Shijo- 
Gawara: this is fantastically beautiful. 

As for industries, I took note only of obi-silks, 
porcelain, and metal- work. The last took my breath 
away. I could not afford to buy anything there. 
The house is small. The room in which guests 
are received is hung with exhibition-certificates 
and medal-cases containing medals from differ- 
ent European and American exhibitions. Visitors 
are kindly received and shown everything. One 
who has not studied the subject should first see 
the process, in order to appreciate the delicacy 
and diflSculty of the manufacture. I enclose the 
card. 

A visit to the Awata-ware factory of Sobei Kin- 
kozan also pleased me. European taste, I fear, is 
spoiling the manufacture; but there are lovely 
things there. What impressed me most was the 
delicious colour. I bought ten plates for four dol- 
lars. Visitors can see everything done. 

The great display of obi-silks ought to delight 
foreigners. There are Kyoto obi worth a hundred 
yen each. Besides the expensive obi, there is a beauti- 
ful cheap stuff for obi, called ito-nishiki, one factory 
of which I visited (Yoshida, Sangencho). It is a 
mixture of cotton, silk, and gold thread. Foreigners 
ought to like this stuff. It is used chiefly for obi for 
children and young girls; and the best designs are 



406 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

all large, or rather large — storks, flowing water, 
tortoises, clouds, etc., in gold and colours. 

The good folks of the Nikkoya will give you the 
best pair of rooms in the hotel if you come down 
here with your family in winter. They will also 
furnish you, if you desire, excellent foreign cooking 
from the neighbouring Tokiwa hotel, and good Bass's 
ale. There are no chairs — but I suppose you don't 
care; and beautiful low tables are used to serve the 
food (foreign food) upon, instead of a zen. 

I fear this letter is dull, and of no use — even 
suggestively; but the weight of the air is platinum 
vapourized. 

Sincerely yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

P. S. You write most delightful letters; but I 
have n't the faintest ghost of an idea who you are. 
I don't know whether I ought even to try to find 
out. It is more charming to know one's friends as 
amiable ghosts thus. 

Don't be shocked! The force of Lowell's "Soul 
of the Far East" is daily growing on me. I can't 
combat his views within myself as I was wont to do : 
I find so much that only his book attempts with 
any success to explain. I am about to be converted. 
There are times I feel so hopeless about every- 
thing in Japan that I would like to leave it if I had 
no one else to care for. Especially when I meet 
insolent clerks who have learned impertinence and 
Christianity at the Doshisha, — when I see Christ- 
ian cathedrals, — when I find Christian teachers 



TO W. B. MASON 407 

among the Japanese instructors of the higher 
schools. 

Therefore great Kyoto pleases me far less than 
Izumo. One little country village of the west coast 
delights my soul more. After all, my whole study 
must be the heart of the commonest people. The 
educated class repel me. It is impossible to make 
friends among them, and pure madness to expect 
sympathy. Did you read Smith's hideous book 
"Chinese Characteristics " .^^ I sometimes think 
education is Chinafying the new generation. 

My hope for the next two years' work will be to 
make a heart-work on Buddhism. But I must have 
highly intelligent help. Can I get it? There is the 
puzzle. The educated Japanese is insulted if asked 
a question about Buddhism. 

L. H. 

Shimata; Mionoseki, Shimane, August 31, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — I have been waiting here for a 
good steamer to Bakkan, and must wait four days 
more. After all my discontent with Kyushu, I am 
homesick for a little house in Tetorihoumachi, the 
dogs, the magazines, the books, the letters, etc. 
After all this wandering, Kumamoto seems very 
much better than it did before. I pass most of the 
time here swimming in the harbour. There is nothing 
else to do except to make the miko dance at the 
Miojinja, or to listen to the geisha. 

A funny thing happened yesterday. A menagerie 
tried to come to Mionoseki; and among the proper- 
ties was an alleged Kudan. Scarcely had the Kudan 



408 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

arrived when there came a stiff breeze from Daisen, 
accompanied by sounds of distant thunder. The 
Kannushi declared the God of Mionoseki was 
offended by the presence of the Kudan and ordered 
the people away, and they returned by the same 
steamer. 

I thought Mionoseki was the only place where 
chickens and hens' eggs were not suffered to enter; 
but I find at lya the same custom, inspired by the 
same tradition. My friends at Matsue sent me 
yesterday a box of ducks' eggs from lya — other- 
wise I should be rather badly off for nutriment, 
lya is not far from Yasugo where the same Deity 
— Koto-Shiro — Nushi-no-Kami — is worshipped 
with directly contrary observances; — Yasugo is 
famous for eggs and chickens. The inhabitants 
declare that the best way of serving the God is to 
kill and devour his enemies. 

All along my journey I have been tormented by 
an insane desire to steal other people's servants. 
The temptation was very strong at Kyoto, where the 
hotel maidens are veritable Tennin; but I did not 
yield to it till I got to Oki. At Oki we found a pretty 
Shizoku boy working in the hotel as a servant of 
people who had once been retainers of his family. 
We stole him, and I am now teaching him how to 
swim. He is so intelligent that I cannot think of 
having him only as a servant. When we know more 
of him, we may do something else for him. 
Ever truly yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 



TO W. B. MASON 409 

Kobe (en route to Oki). 

Dear Mason, — I'm writing, as usual, upon the 
floor, which does not improve the look of a letter. 

Nara was a charming experience — all except the 
hotel at which I stopped (Uoya) and in which I saw 
some curious things. 

While the face of the Nara Daibutz has no such 
possible beauty as that of the Kamakura image, 
the whole effect is something never to be forgotten 
— especially in connexion with the colossal build- 
ing. I am glad I saw it. Of course I saw Kasuga 
and fed the deer and beheld the miko dance. The 
dance is an infinitely more complicated affair than 
that of the Kitzuki miko, who are not children, but 
tall young women ; but it was very pleasing, and the 
flower-beauty of the child-dancers sweet beyond 
expression. No geisha have such charm, — for ob- 
vious reasons cannot. 

I collected a number of o-fuda, mamori, etc., for 
the Professor in both Kyoto and Nara, and at the 
Giant temple also got a couple of ex voto, — gro- 
tesquely ugly in themselves, but touching in connex- 
ion with the faith which created them. An inter- 
esting Nara deity is that one who listens only to one 
prayer. "O Lord, just grant this little thing, and 
I'll never trouble you with another prayer of any 
sort as long as I live!" This shocks Christian super- 
stition; but how deliciously human and natural it is! 

I forgot to bring the Guide-Book with me, —so 
I can't decide whether you wrote about the use 
made of the bed of the Shijo-Gawara at Kyoto on 
summer nights. Little bamboo bridges lead from 



410 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

either bank to the dry spaces, and there much yuki 
and lemonade is sold, and all is a maze of lanterns, 
like a swarming of fireflies. It is very pretty. 

Do you know that the iron cauldron in which Ishi- 
kawa Gogemon was cooked alive in boiling oil is 
(said to be) exhibited at the Daibutz temple at 
Nara? But besides the cauldron you see dried mer- 
maids and dragons — wherefore I do not believe. 

Another thing worth mentioning about Nara, if 
you have not already mentioned it, is the manufac- 
ture of what are called Nara Ningyo. These things 
are much esteemed by the Japanese and some very 
clever bits of rough wood-carving may be occasion- 
ally found among them. But to appreciate them the 
foreigner ought to be previously acquainted with 
the conventional Darumas, Shojos, and other 
grotesqueries of Japanese art: then he can admire 
the hasty cleverness of the wood-cutting. I bought 
some trifles. 

The foreigners spoil these places in some respects, 
but perhaps they also help to preserve the grand old 
trees and groves by their liberal patronage and un- 
affected admiration of what they can understand 
and like. 

Among my memories of Kyoto are dreams of 
sweet faces and voices. There is an inexpressible 
gentleness, refined kindness and sympathy about 
Kyoto women, I imagine. 

Still, I long for the primitive west coast, where 
speech is ruder and ways simpler and nothing good 
can be had to eat, — but where the ancient Gods 
live still in hearts, and the lamps of the Kami are 



TO W. B. MASON 411 

kindled nightly In every home, and where there are 
some gods so extraordinary that I dare not write 
about them at all, lest unkind things be said about 
the Japanese. 

Here Pan Is dying. 

Ever sincerely, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

MoJi (en route for Oki — wonder if I shall ever get there !) 
August 6, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — Here I am at Mojl, — landed 
from Salkyo Maru, and waiting for the Sakai 
steamer due at 2 a. m. I could not follow my first 
plan of visiting Miyajima and other places, as the 
railroad was hopelessly broken. So I have a chance 
to write. 

My second stay at Kobe spoiled the pleasant 
Impression of the first. I saw more of the foreigners 
and longed to get away from them again. This 
proved difficult, as I could only go by the N. Y. K. 
steamer, without waiting; a splendid steamer, but 
patronized extensively by foreigners, four Chinese 
foreigners likewise. There were three beautiful deer 
on board. In large wooden cages, destined for Shang- 
hai; — they made plaintive sobbing noises, and I 
firmly believe they were Kasuga deer, — though I 
could not find out. The voyage was pleasant enough ; 
but I prefer the dangerous little Japanese steamers 
where you can squat down on deck In a yukata and 
smoke a little brass pipe, and become agreeably 
acquainted with everybody. The N. Y. K. is a 
chapter in the modernization of Japan which I am 



412 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

tired of seeing. Professor Chamberlain spoke to me 
about the variability of one's feelings toward Japan 
^ being like the oscillation of a pendulum: one day- 
swinging toward pessimism and the next to optim- 
ism. I have this feeling very often, and I suppose 
^ you must have had it many times. But the pes- 
simistic feeling is generally coincident with some 
experience of New Japan, and the optimistic with 
something of Old Japan. It is a whole year since I 
had a real thrill of pleasure in people, — such as 
I could often obtain in Izumo. Everything seems so 
factitious this side. Even the dancing of the miko 
at Kasuga impressed me only as a pretty show given 
for money : the solemn, dignified Kagura of Kitzuki 
never danced for money, had the charm of religion, 
as well as the respectability of primitive tradition 
to recommend it. I liked Kitzuki better than all I 
saw on this side : though I cannot say why in a short 
letter. The reading of the Professor's "Kojiki" of 
course had something to do with it — prepared 
one's mind for the impressions of the place. A peas- 
ants' country temple to the God of Silkworms in- 
terested me more than the Kiomidzu of Kyoto. — 
But with what hideous rapidity Japan is moderniz- 
ing, after all ! — not in costume, or architecture, or 
f habit, but in heart and manner. The emotional 
nature of the race is changing. Will it ever become 
beautiful again? Or failing to become attractive, 
can it ever become sufficiently complex to make a 
harmony with the emotional character of the West? 
\ It is really a very, very, very hard thing to study, 
is the Japanese soul. And ever so much of what 



TO W. B. MASON 413 

I wrote in my forthcoming volume of Japanese 
sketches seems now to me wrong, — now that I 
have lived so long out of Izumo. I see no literary 
inspiration ahead. I can imagine no means of con- 
soling myself except by plunging into the study of 
Buddhism — making a sort of prose-poem that no 
Japanese will ever look at. But who — not a mad- 
man — should try to write a book for Japanese to 
read, after having acquired some knowledge of things ? 

Well, they have no reason to love us en masse, 
at least. Here, across the strait, is the city bom- 
barded by us ; — and all along the lines of railroad 
the old gods seem to be passing away; and the 
people are losing their good manners, their graces, 
their pretty ways, by foreign contact; and the scale 
of living is always rising. We bombarded unhappi- 
ness into the country — beyond any doubt. Force 
sowed the seed; the future will gather the black 
crop. In the eternal order of things, I suppose it is 
inevitable that every race should be made as 
wretched as possible; and all who cannot accept 
wretchedness as a necessary part of life must be 
exterminated. But again, in the eternal order of 
things, what is the use? What is even the use of the 
life of a solar system — evolution, dissolution, — re- 
evolution, re-dissolution, forever more.^^ Really 
Buddhism alone gives us any consolatory ideas on 
the subject; but it is now vulgar to mention Buddh- 
ism to the Japanese. 

The weather to-day is very gloomy. So is this 
letter from 

L. H. 



414 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

Saigo, August 17, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — I am already tired of the island 
of Saigo or Dogo, and am going to try for better 
luck at the Dozen Islands. It is very hard to see 
anything here; and I solemnly suspect there is 
nothing to see — except natural scenery. That is 
nice — well, nice is not the word : there is much 
wild grim beauty. But the roads are so atrocious, 
and the distances so appalling, that even the inhab- 
itants of Saigo, as a rule, know nothing about the 
interior. 

I went to-day to the celebrated lake of Sainoike, 
where the Bateiseki stone is said to abound. I had 
to wait two days to go, — because there was a little 
wind; and with ever so little wind, travelling along 
this coast in a boat is really dangerous. The rocks 
rise sheer from the water, and beetle frightfully 
overhead, and are worn into all sorts of shapes by 
the waves. We skirted there for about an hour, 
occasionally passing a pretty cove, with some grey 
thatched houses, — fishermen's houses, — and then 
landed at a bank of shingle. The infinity of boulders 
was disheartening to see, — much more dishearten- 
ing to walk upon. With every incoming wave, the 
shingle moved, and when the wave receded, the 
sound was like heavy volley-firing. After stumbling 
and swearing for five minutes, we got to the grass 
beyond the shingle, and advanced into a sort of 
little circular valley — close to the beach (the crater, 
I think, of some enormously ancient volcano). 
There I saw a large shallow pool of fresh water, with 
a few plants — water-lilies, etc., floating in it. I 



TO W. B. MASON 415 

wanted to enter it, and try how deep it was; but 
the people would not hear of it. They said monsters 
and deities guarded it. — All this was very disap- 
pointing. I asked about the black stone, and was 
told it came from a mountain overhanging the lake 

— all covered with scrubby growths and pathless. 
So I returned. I heard of a celebrated shrine of 
Jizo. I prepared to visit it; and was told it had been 
burned twenty years ago. But the news of its burning 
was known only to some few people — so slow does 
news travel here. I enclose a photo, giving one 
glimpse of Saigo. There is one pretty temple, Zen- 
ryoji, on a hill above the town — Jodo-shu-nen — 
the gift of a wealthy citizen. I hope to get folk-lore 
in Oki; but there is nothing, I imagine, to attract 
the tourist — except the absence of missionaries : 
that is something. 

Very truly, 

L. Hearn. 

HiSHiMUHA, — which is in the Island of Nakashima, 
in the Archipelago of Oki, August 21, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — Leaving Saigo by a Japanese 
sailing boat — could n't catch the nasty little 
steamer — we re-entered the harbour called Hishi- 
minato day before yesterday. It is very picturesque, 

— the entrance to the harbour. First one passed a 
lot of extraordinary islands — Komori, ** The Bat," 
with a cavern in it or rather through it; — and Sa- 
buro and Futamatta and others. Entering from 
Saigo, one has Nishinoshima on the right and Na- 
kashima on the left. The scenery on the Nakashima 



416 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

side is especially impressive, — a sort of natural bas- 
tion work, — the mockery of a colossal Japanese 
fortress. 

Anciently there were no robbers in Oki. Quite 
recently robbers have appeared in Saigo, — strang- 
ers from other ports, — but in Dozen, folk still 
sleep with doors and windows open, holding rob- 
bers to be impossible. They believe in foxes, — not 
in thieves. There are about 1000 people in Hishi- 
mura, and only one policeman for this and all the 
neighbouring villages. There is never any fighting 
or serious offences, — although immorality con- 
siderably prevails, as in all open ports, — whereby 
public health and good temper do not appear to 
suffer. But the horrible stories told by the Japanese 
themselves about Oki morals are not true — any 
more than the stories about phantom islands and 
men who walk about without heads. 

I went yesterday to Amagori — Nishinoshima 
— where is the tomb of Gotoba-Temo. It is about 
one ri by boat from Hishimura, — very pretty 
scenery, and lonesome. At the Ujigami of the little 
village of Amamura, I got a queer ex voto for the 
Professor. At a short distance from the village, 
you see the tomb of the Emperor, enclosed by a 
high paling, and shadowed by pine trees. The pic- 
ture in the Oki book I am going to send you will 
give a good idea of the scene. Lonely, shadowy, and 
not without melancholy charm. 

In Amamura there is a house called Ama-no- 
Shikikaro-no-Iye. He was anciently Choja, and the 
exiled Emperors used to visit him; and in the family 



TO W. B. MASON 417 

are said to be preserved the cups of silver the august 
guests were wont to drink from, and many other 
relics, — which, by the way, were on exhibition at 
the last Tokyo Exposition. But the present de- 
scendant and representative of the ancient Choja 
is very old, poor, and ill, — is expected to die soon, 
— and visitors cannot see the relics now. 

I got some folk-lore here — only a little. Will try 
to-morrow at Urago. 

The highest mountain in Oki is said to be Tako- 
hizan-Nishinoshima, on top of which there is a 
shrine of Gongen-sama, very famous. Ghostly fires 
are said to come from the sea and visit the moun- 
tain at certain times. The ascent is not difiicult — 
except for the roughness of the path. 

So plentiful is the cuttlefish off these islands that 
native boats have been broken and swamped by the 
weight of one catch. . . . 

The scenery in Dozen is far more attractive than 
in Dogo (Saigo). I think it really beautiful — sail- 
ing through this group in a small fishing-vessel. I 
love Oki — with all its barrenness and bleakness, 
and would rather live there (in summer) than in 
any part of Japan I know. Everywhere the food is 
ample and surprisingly good. 

There is one drawback, — the atrocious smells 
inevitable to the cuttlefish industry. They are 
really awful; and I don't think either you or the 
Professor would willingly endure them. Only at 
Hishimura there are no dreadful smells at all — at 
least none while I was there. 

I was disappointed about folk-lore. The best of 



418 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

any Oki folk-tales I got outside. In Oki the new 
generation refuse to talk about their old traditions. 
"Oh! — that was when we were all savages {yaban)" 
— they say. Somehow or other I fancy people are 
apt to become less good-hearted when they begin 
to mock their old beliefs, their old gods, etc. . . . 
Ever most truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Ubago, Oki, August 24, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — Returning to Urago, of which I 
wrote you in my first letter from Oki, I had more 
chance of studying the place. It is very queer, and 
very primitive. There are two hundred and fifty 
houses, from which I judge the population to be at 
least 1500 — children swarm. At Saigo the Oki 
folk are accustomed to see men-of-war, but nobody 
ever saw a foreigner before at Urago, wherefore the 
population climbed upon the roofs to look at me. 
They were as kind and gentle and absurdly trust- 
fully honest as if the world had only been just made 
and they were the first inhabitants thereof. 

On the way to Urago — from Hishimura — I 
stopped at the funny little village of Beppu, in 
Nishinoshima. You can imagine how primitive it 
is from the fact that at the only Yadoya in the place 
kwashi are represented by dried peas, and there is 
no real tea in the village — I think. There is a 
shrine of Godaigo at Beppu, on the top of a small 
but very steep hill, shadowed by pines. The shrine 
is only a little wooden miya, containing a metal 
mirror, and an earthen vessel. 



TO W. B. MASON 419 

Before embarking on the Oki-Saigo, I have the 
good luck to find an Oki family in Saikai, who give 
me much information. I have already got a lot of 
Oki folk-lore. I must try to include an Oki sketch 
in my book if I can : the trip will pay me in many 
ways. I doubt if it would pay the globe-trotter 
communis, or mere sight-seers. 

Last night a steamer came and lay before the 
window, — the Nagasaki. Immediately, instead of 
working, captain and crew sat down on deck to a 
feast of sake and divers condiments. And a multi- 
tude of women went on board into all the cabins and 
orifices of the ship. And the people did eat and drink 
right joyously until daylight, — but without ruffian- 
ism or much noise. And some queer things were 
said. At midnight there were still three men on 
deck, and a mochi-seller. One man had drunk so 
much sake that he could only enunciate with dif- 
ficulty words to this effect: — "Women as for, 
please me not. Sake is the best thing in this fleeting 
world." Whereupon, another man said, "To eat 
and drink as for, I little care. Woman is the supreme 
thing in this temporary world." Then he went 
below. And the third man opened his mouth and 
said, — having finished the last mochi in the box 
of the mochi-seller, and having said words of scorn 
to the mochi-seller because he had no more, — 
"Sake as for, and women as for, I care nothing. 
Mochi are the most excellent things in this miserable 
world." And the mochi-seller promised to bring 
more mochi to-night, — when I shall be in Oki. 

Now if I had invented this, it would be common- 



420 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

place enough; but being true, it illustrates human 
nature quite oddly enough perhaps to make you 
smile. Wherefore it is written. 

L. H. 

Tetohihoumachi, Ktjmamoto, September 10, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — I missed the steamer at Sakai 
(the agents are liars!), and had to cut across the 
country for the third time by kuruma. I first tried 
the Okayama route; but it has been so badly dam- 
aged by rains that the police warned me against 
it, and I shifted to the Onomichi route, via Kura- 
shiki, where I caught a train for Onomichi after 
three days of mountain travel. The experience was 
hard, but interesting; — I saw a lot of things that 
would interest the Professor, and that I will write 
to him about later on — regarding o-fuda and 
mamori. Some of the scenery was exquisite. I 
tried to buy guide-books for you everywhere, but 
there were none. I got home only two hours ago, 
to find your charming letter awaiting me. 

Before I say anything else, let me protest against 
that Doshisha correspondent of yours. No foreigner 
can tell you more about Izumo than I can. The 
information seems to me intended as a sort of slur 
upon Mr. Senke — though I may be mistaken. The 
man referred to is a priest and has simply a repu- 
tation as an uranai or fortune-teller: there are lots 
of such. I have been at Kakeya, but never thought 
the matter worth bothering about, — only a few 
peasants know of the man in the neighbourhood of 
Matsue. My Izumo servant, 0-Yone (she is from 



TO W. B. MASON 421 

Imaichi, not far from Kakeya), knows about him, 
because her father once got his fortune told by the 
old priest. 

But to mention such a man in connexion with 
Senke, or a parallel, is an insult to a very refined 
gentleman, the son of Baron Senke whom you doubt- 
less know. . . . The more I learn of Kitzuki, the 
grander the old temple seems. All through Iwani, 
Tottori, Bingo, Hoki, Old, Okayama, the o-fuda 
of the mighty shrine whiten in a million rice-fields, 
and occupy countless Kamidama. The mere fact 
that I was received at the temple has been a talis- 
man for me. Everywhere Shinto priests treat me 
with extraordinary kindness. I thought the Kitzuki 
material worth more than two hundred printed 
pages for my book. All the famous Shoguns and 
Emperors left their gifts there. There is nothing so 
good as Kitzuki in Kyoto, — nothing. It is hal- 
lowed by all the oldest traditions of the race. And 
then to mention its princely chief in connexion with 
a vulgar country bonsan and fortune-teller, really 
stirs my bile. — As for the fortune-teller you will 
find a much more interesting one in Yokohama, in 
a tiny Jizo-Do, near the hundred steps — an old 
priest of the Jodi sect, whom I used often to visit. 
But the idea of Izumo peasants worshipping a 
bonsan is supremely absurd ! ! . . . 

What I saw at Sakai that charmed me for nearly 
a whole night was a magnificent bon-odori by the 
whole population of stevedores and longshoremen 
— labourers far more robust than you see at Yoko- 
hama. Imagine nearly a thousand superb peasants. 



422 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

men and women, fantastically attired, singing the 
weirdest, wildest, sweetest song, — full of quaverings 
and fractional notes impossible to write; all the hands 
and feet sounding together in the measure of a 
dance that never ceased until daylight. I have seen 
many bon-odori, — the dance differs in almost every 
village, as well as the air. But except the great 
Honen-odori at Kitzuki, when Mr. Senke called out 
some five hundred dancers, I never saw so impress- 
ive a scene as that at Sakai. Even the famous 
West Indian dances were far less singular and 
haunting. But the music and the movement of the 
Izumo and Oki dances are extremely complicated, 
and very difficult to describe. Even the Matsue 
people and other city folk cannot easily learn the 
tunes of these dances. I w^ish I had had a musician 
with me capable of writing down the notes. It 
would be very difficult, however, because the notes 
are to a great extent fractions of notes. 

By the way, I forbid my pupils to use the word 
"idol." Its original Greek meaning was beautiful; 
but it has an offensive missionary-meaning to-day, 
and its use in connexion with Buddhism is mon- 
strously unjust. Buddhist priests do not worship 
"idols," though they teach respect for the images 
in their temples, which are symbols only. Your 
correspondent is horrid with his "idol"! 

Yes, I think Irving will make a public hit with 
Arnold's Japanese drama. What would please you 
and me, or at least seem artistically congruous, 
would not perhaps have such a chance with the 
public. Something purely and perfectly Japanese 



TO W. B. MASON 423 

and artistic would not be understood. The public 
taste in theatrical matters is still more incompre- 
hensible sometimes than the public taste in regard 
to new books. It is a special art — and not a very 
lofty one — to divine the plebs in these things. Who- 
ever has the natural gift to do it while still young, 
can get rich without much trouble. . . . 

I almost forgot to tell you about my travelling 
with a party of Naval-Academy students from Ono- 
michi to Kure. What magnificent boys ! I fell quite 
in love with all of them. They have a teacher 
(Norman), and he has very little work. If that 
place ever becomes vacant, I would sacrifice some- 
thing to get it. To be able to teach such splendid 
fellows would be a pleasure indeed. And I fancy the 
Japanese professors would be good fellows all — 
being naval men. I have two ex-Doshisha colleagues 
here and — well, I won't say anything more. 
Ever truly, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

. . . My stolen boy promises well. He learned 
to swim in about five days — very nicely. He is 
now installed in my home. 

May 28, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — . . . Since we began to corre- 
spond I have also made the epistolary acquaintance 
of Friend Dening, which is another relief to the utter 
isolation of the Japanese exile. A fact that impressed 
me strongly is that neither of you, in writing, seems 
to have much to say about the personality of the 



424 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

man, — though Dening's analysis of his work, as 
an ethical influence and otherwise, was very inter- 
esting. But I suspect Kipling does not show per- 
sonal peculiarities strongly; — I would imagine 
him to be quite an ordinary positive character to 
outward seeming, — one of those Lowell talks about 
who make themselves strongly felt even without 
saying anything when they go into a room. By the 
way, I absolutely adore his work. I have read most 
of his books four or five times over; and some partic- 
ular stories much oftener. I like nearly everything; 
and even what I don't like, I re-read and wonder at. 

I sent some other letters to the Mail. One about 
Snodgrass was suppressed altogether; and I am 
getting tired fighting with my hands tied by their 
absurdly unjust "blasphemy" limit. Lecky, whom 
Brinkley praised warmly in an editorial note some 
months ago, speaks of the theological conception of 
God as "considerably worse" than the theological 
conception of the Devil. He says also that men "suc- 
ceed in persuading themselves that their divinity 
would be extremely offended if they hesitated to 
ascribe to him the attributes of a friend." (Vol. i — 
pp. 96-97, Appleton's ed.) I wonder what Brinkley 
thinks of that. I am very fond of parts of Lecky; 
though his theory of intuitional morality leaves him 
far behind the colossal intellect of Herbert Spencer, 
and though he is by no means wholly impartial. . . . 

By the way, I feel quite pleased with that little 
address of Sir Edwin's to the Ladies' Educational 
Association. It was really very pretty, and large, 
and anti-theological. He is not, apparently, in- 



TO W. B. MASON 425 

clined to pose here as a Christian, in spite of his 
"Light of the World," — so that sop to Cerberus 
may have prejudiced me too much against him. 

In your last letter you referred to Bourget. Did 
you ever read "Le Calvaire" by young Octave 
Mirbeau? If not, try to get it: I wish I had a copy 
to send you. It is the most terrible picture of 
physical slavery to a woman I ever read; — Manon 
Lescaut turned professional prostitute, with a lit- 
erary man for souteneur. Perhaps it will shock 
you a little, — unless you have a dash of Latin 
blood in you (I don't mean shock your prudery, 
but your Northern manhood). I, who am three 
fourths Latin, understand it. A Scandinavian rarely 
reaches such an abyss, though his passions are 
stronger : — he is more apt to turn upon the sub- 
jector, and tear her to pieces. It takes the Latin 
to visit Le Calvaire, or to let Daudet's Sapho trail 
him through all infamy into ruin. But we all know 
there are women neither beautiful nor witty having 
a magnetic something, — a sort of sexual electricity, 
— that means damnation to whomsoever they touch 
even with the tips of a finger. 

I have two French novels only, — perhaps you 
have not yet read them. Zola's "L'Argent," and 
Loti's last "Le Livre de la Pitie," etc. (a volume of 
sketches really). The latter contains a piece called 
" Reve," which I made a very rough translation of 
for the Mail. Would you not like to read it in the 
original.'^ The other pieces are not up to his usual 
manner. Zola's book is powerful. It is also at your 
service if you have it not. 



426 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

My book is to be called (unless the publishers at 
the last moment desire another title) "Glimpses 
of Unfamiliar Japan." I have dedicated it to 
Mitchell McDonald and to the Professor. Not with- 
out some doubt as to whether the Professor would 
like being thus placed in apposition. But I trust it 
is all right. If not, let me know. McDonald was 
a rare friend to me. ... In the West Indies only 
I found such another. But these kindnesses make 
eternal friendships, after the little obligation, or 
rather the little part of the great obligation has been 
settled. I thought at first of putting other names 
in the dedication; but I can't very well. I reserve 
that for a new book. . . . 

The vacation is coming, and I think, after all, I 
must spend part of it in Kyoto, and part in some 
sea-village. I love swimming. The best place I 
know for it is Mionoseki, — where you can jump 
out of the window into fourteen feet of water. But 
things are upset. I can't get my contract renewed 
till the idiotic Diet decides matters; it is being 
renewed only by patches of months. They want 
me for another year; but nobody knows what the 
villains in Tokyo are going to do. It makes one 
feel like a soshi: every blow given to a member of 
the opposition evokes from my soul a sympathetic 
"Ha!" 

Ever most faithfully yours, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Mason, — This letter is for the Professor, 
by rights; but as he said to me that you represent 



TO W. B. MASON 427 

him in every particular, I am going to burthen you 
with it, — as well as with some other things. . . . 

I enclose also a ningyo sold at the place, because 
it represents Inari with the attributes of Daikoku, 
and although a toy, illustrates the manner in which 
any popular Shinto Deity can absorb Buddhist in- 
fluence and steal Buddhist property. 

The rest of the things doubtless explain them- 
selves — except the Nobori, or little paper flags. 

I took these little paper flags from before wayside 
shrines on the mountain road between Yonago and 
Onomichi. They are marked simply with the age of 
the petitioner — the prayer remains secret in the 
heart. It is thought sufficient to tell the Deity: 
"A woman of 22 years." He knows the rest. 

These shrines are intensely interesting. I read 
Eastlake's papers on " Equine Deities " and upon the 
"Kirin" with considerable disappointment. In the 
heart of the mountains, Bato-Kwannon explains 
herself very simply. She is simply the divinity who 
'protects horses and cattle. And the peasants erect 
before her shrine sotoba giving her this role, and 
requesting her to take care of their live-stock, and 
to protect them from all harm. 

Passing through the cholera region, it was touch- 
ing to see how each parish called upon its ujigami 
to prevent the advent of the plague. At the border- 
line between parish and parish the mamori of the 
local divinity were planted, with a prayer to hinder 
the pestilence from advancing further. The Japan- 
ese language does not personify Death or Plague: 
yet here was the evidence of a personification in 



428 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

thought. The pest comes by the road : therefore the 
Gods must guard the road. The Pest will not come 
by the rice-fields because the road is too bad. 

In the rice fields of all the Ken I traversed, the 
o-fuda of the Izumo Taisha prevailed. However, 
I saw what I never saw in Izumo — through Hoki 
and Tottori and Okayama Kens — a sandara placed 
over the top of each mamori to protect it from the 
rain. I also saw charms mounted, having a little 
awning over them. I also saw written prayers for 
the souls of domestic animals, — requests that the 
dumb servant might enter into Paradise. This was 
pretty. Continually on one bit of road, my jin- 
rikisha men turned aside to avoid hurting snakes! 
In America everybody would be trying to kill the 
poor creatures. They were so little afraid that 
they would lift their heads to look at us, after we 
passed by, — instead of trying to hide. They are 
excellent guardians of fields too. The passion to 
kill them abroad has produced evil results — espe- 
cially in the West Indies. . . . 

The temple Kwan-ze-on-dera near Dazaifu is the 
most interesting which I have seen since leaving 
Kamakura. The art is the same : the art of a very 
remote epoch full of force and strangeness. 

I don't know if you observed that Herbert Spencer 
in his recent "Inductions of Ethics: Individual 
Life" (the concluding part of vol. i, *' Principles of 
Morality ") gives "particular hell " to Friend Dening 
and the Mombusho. However, it is rather a com- 
pliment even to get a little hell from Spencer. 
Moreover, Dening stands on the same plane with 



TO W. B. MASON 429 

Gladstone, who is savagely criticized for his Hel- 
lenic tendencies in the same volume. What consoles 
one for these severities is the delightful assertion 
that in order to find the virtues which we imagine 
to be Christian, we must go to countries which are 
not Christian, and among people who are not highly 
civilized. And this statement is gloriously capped 
by the declaration that the only hope for future 
morality is that Western civilization will be able to 
rise at last to the moral level now occupied by vari- 
ous nations of naked savages! Whoop! Hurrah!! 

If you put anything new in the Guide-Book about 
the Honmyoji temple near Kumamoto, you might 
add that a very painful spectacle is to be witnessed 
there almost daily: multitudes of fox-possessed 
coming to invoke the aid of Kato Kiyomasa. The 
sight, however, is horrible: I hope never to see it 
again. 

With regards, ever, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

October 18, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — How delightful it would be to 
see the Professor here ! — I think I could make him 
comfortable (for Kumamoto) : with beefsteak, pota- 
toes, roast chicken, and Bass's ale. . . . But I'm 
afraid the prospect is too good to be true : what we 
want to happen in this world never happens. 

Well, well, — I hope I did not make any serious 
mistake about the matter of animal-souls. Here 
is a text from an inscription of Bato-Kwannon by 
the roadside among the mountains, near Kama- 



430 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

mura : " Bato-Kwan- ze-on-Bosatsu-gin-ba-bodai- 
han-ye." It might have been rendered wrong for me : 
tell me when you write again how you would trans- 
late it. As for the little ceremony at the death of 
animals, I know only this. At my neighbour's 
house a dog died which the people were fond of: it 
was buried under a tree; — a number of incense- 
rods were set in the ground above the grave, and 
the women and children of the family joined their 
hands and murmured little prayers over the grave. 
I thought it strange and asked my wife, who told 
me it was not strange: that it was commonly done 
in Izumo, — and I suppose elsewhere, — by people 
who were fond of their animals. I enquired of my 
cook, — who was a long time a yoshi of hyakusho, 
and came to me in consequence of the death of his 
people. He said, however, that in his part of the 
country that was not done. My wife is a samurai, 
and knows the customs of the country but little. 
Still, there is the evidence of the Bato-Kwannon 
inscription, of her assertion that in Izumo the little 
prayer is often said, and of what I saw done myself. 

Moreover, my mother-in-law, who knows much 
more of the old customs than the rest of my folks, 
tells me this: When a cow dies, a little drawing of 
it is made on paper — white — black — or black-and- 
white, — according to the colour of the cow, — 
and the age of the cow is written on the paper, 
— and this is pasted with rice-paste on the door of 
a Kwannon-do, — and a little prayer is said ''uslii 
bodai no tame.^' 

My servant 0-Yone, from Imai-ichi, knows no- 



TO W. B. MASON 431 

thing about these things, nor my boy from Oki. But 
my wife's family (a very illustrious family in old 
days in Matsue) knows much about them; and 
although I have never seen the performance in the 
Izumo country, I saw it elsewhere, and the Bato- 
Kwannon in Tottori-Ken. All this would seem to 
indicate that the custom was once much more gen- 
erally practised than now. But other evidence on 
the subject is needed, and I shall try to obtain it. 
Your wife's statement convinces me that the facts 
I obtained are insufficient to base any general state- 
ment upon. 

Now about another matter of interest to the 
Professor. In no part of Oki could I hear of an inu- 
gami-mochi, — though I made thoroughly search- 
ing enquiries, and even questioned the police. But 
the fox-superstition takes curious shapes there, and 
is very strong. 

Therefore, the statement printed in "Things 
Japanese," from a Japanese physician, on the au- 
thority of an alleged Oki peasant, puzzled me. I 
have been making enquiries since, and my mother- 
in-law tells me this: There are no "goblin-dogs" 
in the beliefs of the west coast; but in Iwami (and 
perhaps in Oki) the term inu-gami is used for hito- 
kitsune. I take it to be a euphemism. There is among 
the peasantry an idea that the fox (hito-kitsune) 
takes shapes something like an itachi (weasel), 
sometimes like other creatures; keeping its other 
form invisible. But it is very difficult to define the 
beliefs — not merely because there are at least three 
varieties of ghost foxes, but because the beliefs 



432 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

about them differ everywhere; and scarcely two 
peasants tell the same thing. I was helped in these 
researches in Izumo by a fellow teacher, who ques- 
tioned numbers of peasants for me. 

I am told the name of the main island of Oki is 
simply Dogo, not Saigo, as I imagined and heard 
in Oki. Saigo is only the town. I can only decide 
these contradictions by the book. Rein calls the 
big island Oki, but he was never there. I have 
written an enormous mass of stuff about Oki: it is 
nearly finished, but I am in doubt about its value. 
With best regards ever from 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

November 1, 1892. 

Dear Mason, — ... You delighted me with 
a hope of seeing you here at No. 34. I think I can 
make you cosy. Are you accustomed to a Japan- 
ese house? I have no chairs and tables a VEuro- 
peen; but everything else is possible. I can give you 
good seyoryori^ whiskey, Bass, or Guinness. And 
I would like very much to see your son. Besides, I 
want to know you. I have asked Mr. Kano about 
you : he does not remember the name. I have never 
seen anything of you except your charming letters; 
and I am beginning to doubt whether you exist 
except as a Soul. To talk of retiring into your 
"former obscurity,'* when the Professor returns, 
means of course silence, — for the mystery of you 
has always been. But I have become too much 
accustomed to your letters, and it would be quite 
bad of you to stop them. So I hope you won't. 



i|fe' 



m^'' - 







TO W. B. MASON 433 

I am horribly sorry you did nothing with your 
book-material. You ought to do something lovely. 
Who can do justice to Japan without sympathy; 
and how many writers on Japan have a grain of it? 
Conder perhaps has, and there the line stops. Even 
the author of "Japanese Women and Girls" has no 
deep comprehension of things. But what a horribly 
diflScult thing it is to write about Japan. The effort 
in itself dries me up. I'm afraid you'll find my book 
heavy. I can't venture to imagine soul-play: the 
motives and thoughts escape me as individualities; 
I get glimpses of them in generalities only. I'm 
trying now to write stories: it is the hardest work 
I ever tried to do, and I fear the result will be flat. 
— And you, who know so much more about the 
Japanese than I, hesitate. That is not encouraging. 

I saved at least four fifths of my first impressions; 
but in correcting them, they began to contract and 
dry up in a way that told me I had let emotion run 
away with me. Self-restraint is very hard at first in 
Japan : later on all impulse and inspiration fail, and 
there is only a dead grind. Yet the result of the 
grind has more value in certain ways. What wor- 
ries me is the absence of feeling, — the want of 
something to stir one profoundly when his know- 
ledge of the country is suflScient to prevent illusion. 
And it won't come. I'm afraid it will never come 
any more. I must content myself with the queer, 
the curious, the artless, — or attempt a work on 
Buddhism, which, as you say, would require much 
time and money. 

It occurred to me, however, to ask you to help 



4S4 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

me in an easy way — by writing me a few lines 
about anything touching or noble in common every- 
day life which you might happen to see without 
wishing to use. A maidservant, a child at school, 
an aged man dying among the memories of the past 
and the disorders of the present, a bit of kindness 
by the roadside, — any "heart-thing," — I would 
like to know. I collect all I can, and write them, 
and put them in drawers. In time they work them- 
selves out. For instance, I have a servant's death 
written, — but I want to get a beginning for it, — 
a sacrifice if possible. What I mean is this: In an 
idle hour if you hear or see something in Japanese 
real life that would suggest to you, — "Hearn 
would like to see that," — then a line or two might 
inspire me with a whole sketch. 

I can't get much chance to study life in Kuma- 

\ moto. I don't like the Kyushu people — the com- 

1 mon people. In Izumo all was soft, gentle, old- 

/ fashioned. Here the peasants and the lower classes 

/ drink and fight and beat their wives and make me 

/ mad to think that I wrote all the Japanese were 

L_ angels. . . . 

Ever faithfully, with a strong protest against the 
sin of vanishing into obscurity, 

Lafcadio Hearn. 

Dear Mason, — ... I have just read that most 
frightful book by Kipling, "The Light that Failed," 
where he speaks of the horror of being in London 
without money. Nobody can even dimly imagine 
— no, not with a forty horse-power imagination — 



TO W. B. MASON 435 

what the horror is, if he has n't been there. And I 
have — in London, Cincinnati, New York, Mem- 
phis, New Orleans, Savannah — not to speak of 
other places. Repeated experiences make it worse: 
you never can get used to it. I would not return to a 
great civilized city again without money to save my 
life from a tiger. Hell is realized there. No : if ever 
I have to leave Japan, I shall sail straight south into 
some old tropical port; — any crumbling Spanish 
town, any village of half -naked savages, any im- 
aginable land of cannibals and pagans, where the 
winter is not, is a million times better to live in than 
a world's capital without money. "What a fool I 
was not to go and live among savages when I was 
nineteen years old," was my first thought when I 
passed my first week in a West Indian cabin in a 
mountain district. Money! — And yet I must look 
sharp after money now; for whatever happens, I 
must fix my little woman and her folks all right first. 
It will puzzle me, too. They are Izumo samurai — 
old-fashioned — know as little about business as I 
do, which is a most awful thing to say about them. 
I suspect real estate is the only thing — and that 
in their own country of Izumo, where things have 
less changed. . . . 

I understand your horror of Zola; but I think it 
is a literary duty to stomach the horror, and discern 
the curious mental phenomenon behind it — the 
mind that sees and hears vice as Dickens saw and 
heard eccentricity. Now, if you have not read 
"Germinal," there is a treat for you: the tremen- 
dous personifications of machinery, devouring hu- 



436 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

man life. And if you have not read "L'Attaque 
du Moulin" (in *' Les Soirees de Medan") there is 
another treat for you. I am going to send you a 
third treat — "Le Reve"— by Zola. Read it: it 
will not shock you at all. It is full of curious 
beauties. 

In which of Kipling's books is "The Finest Story 
in the World .5^" — I never read it, though I ordered 
Kelly & Walsh to send me everything that Kipling 
ever wrote or will write (only, not American pirated 
editions). I feel I still underrate Kipling. He grows 
bigger every day to me, — looms up colossally, — 
reaches out like a stupendous shadow, over half a 
planet at once. But oh ! the hardness of the tone — 
the silent cynicism of facts — the self -repression 

— the "matter-of-course" way of seeing things — 
the extraordinary objectivity and incomprehensible 
subjectivity cruel as fate! What a most damnable 
thing civilization is ! — must be, to create such a 
writer. What complexities of suffering, of knowledge, 
of penetration, of toleration, of all accursed experi- 
ence, and all diabolical intuition are summed up 
in that one young life! What a revelation of the 
ghostliness of matter ! . . . Goodness ! how small it 
makes me feel to read that man; how blind I am, 

— how stupid I am, — what an egregious ass I am 
to waste a page upon what that mind hurls into 
half-a-line! 

Don't read "Fantome d'Orient:" I got it the 
other day, and have been disgusted astonishingly. 
Something is now the matter with Loti. I don't 
know what. For all such men there is one certain 



TO W. B. MASON 437 

danger. Their work depends for its value upon 
marvellous super-sensitiveness to impressions: thus 
it is rather physiological than psychological — in 
the higher senses. Now feelings begin to dull as we 
glide away from "the tropic clime" of youth. Then, 
unless the mind has been trained to higher things, 
there is only dust and ashes. And there is only dust 
and ashes in "Fantome d'Orient," — nerves morbid, 
feeling turned in upon itself, no longer responding 
to the spiritual ghostly touch of cosmic things. 

I think the novel by Mirbeau you refer to is the 
sequel of the other ("Le Calvaire") ; but I never saw 
it. I expect enormous things from Zola's forth- 
coming "Debacle." He is stupendous at painting 
battles. 

I hope to write a Buddhist book within the next 
two years — something quite different from any- 
thing ever before attempted. But the obstacles are 
colossal. It is so diflScult to reach the people — to 
get at the popular heart with system. The more a 
Japanese is educated, on the other hand, the further 
he is from you. The delicious Japanese child's life 
globes into yours, vibrates with it: the distance 
between the European and the schooled adult is 
vast as the interspaces between suns. I despair 
betimes. 

With best regards. 

Ever yours, 

L. Hearn. 



LETTERS TO MRS. HEARN 



Ill 

LETTERS TO MRS. HEARN 

July 12, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — To-day we have not much sun- 
light, but I and Kazuo swam as usual. Kazuo 
played a torpedo in the water. [Hearn means a 
play of his boy, who pulled his legs from under the 
water while swimming.] He is growing clever in 
swimming, to my delight. We had a long walk 
yesterday. We bought a little ball and bell for the 
cat whose life I had saved and brought home. The 
stone-cutter is showing me his design of the Jizo's 
face. Shall I let him carve the name of Kazuo 
Koizumi somewhere on the idol.^^ I can see how glad 
the Yaidzu people would be to see the new idol. 

We have too many fleas here. Please, bring some 
flea-powder when you come. But this little delight- 
ful cat makes us forget the fleas. She is really funny. 
We call her Hinoko. 

Plenty of kisses to Suzuko and Kiyoshi from 

Papa. 

July 25, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Your sweet letter at hand. I 
am glad of it. So Ume San [Professor Ume of the 
Imperial University] has built his own new house. 
We shall go together to see him at his home. Kazuo 
swam into a deeper sea first yesterday; he swam five 
times toward a boat at quite a distance. He is grow- 
ing more strong and clever in swimming every day. 



442 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

He is terribly black now. The weather is lovely and 
cool. We gave a name to Kazuo's boat, "Hinoko 
Maru." OsakiSan [Otokichi's daughter] made little 
flag for the boat. As I informed you already, the cat 
is called "Spark," and her little eyes burn like 
sparks. Sweet word to everybody at home from 

Papa. 

August 1, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Yesterday we had a real big 
wave, of the height of summer season. Otokichi 
swam with Kazuo, as he was afraid for Kazuo to go 
alone. The sea began to groan terribly since noon; 
and at evening the billows grew bigger, and al- 
most reached the stone wall. It is difiicult to swim 
this morning also, but I expect that the sea will be 
calmer in the afternoon. 

The little baby sparrow which I already wrote 
you about had been pretty strong for the last three 
days ; but under the sudden change of weather it was 
taken ill. 

Last evening Otokichi bought two sharks. Kazuo 
studied their shapes carefully; and it was the first 
experience for him. Otokichi cooked nicely for our 
supper shark's meat, which was white and excellent. 
I take some milk in the morning. 

August 10, 1904. 

Little Mamma San, — This morning we had a 
pleasant swimming, the sea being warm. Kadzuo 
did not swim so well as before, but I think he will 
improve in a few days. I noticed his wearing a tiny 



TO MRS. HEARN 443 

charm, and asked him what it meant. He answered 
that mother, from her anxiety for him, had told him 
to wear it whenever he go a-swimming. Iwao swam 
a little. He will become a good swimmer. 

Ume [Otokichi's son] is now a grown man and 
even married. His wife is kind and lovely. This 
year Otokichi looks a little older than before. As 
to the rampart here, it was the old one that had 
got some damage; the new one is very strong. It 
is a pity that those ducks and doves are seen no 
more. 

Loving words from Papa to dear Mamma and 
Grandmother. 

August 13, 1904. 

Little Mamma Sama, — The weather is good 
always. The other guest at Otokichi's has gone; I 
am glad of it. The wife of Otokichi is ill, and moved 
to Tetsu's house. I believe she is getting better. 
Otoyo called on us. Her husband, I am told, was 
called to the front, and also the tobacco-shop keeper 
whom you know. Yaidzu has sent her seventeen 
soldiers out to Manchuria. 

To-day the sea is high, but rather calm. Kazuo 
and Iwao with their Papa swam. Iwao is improving 
in swimming; he has learned how to float well. I 
am sure he will soon master the art thoroughly. I 
felt so hot and lazy; but Papa's belly, like Hotei- 
sama's [the big-bellied God of Comfort], is growing 
rather small. 

The festival is held to-day. *' Yarei, yare, Haya," 
we hear the musical voice. The sacred car of the 



444 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

festival I expect to pass by the house this afternoon. 
Sweet word to Kiyoshi, and kisses to '*Aba, Aba" 
[so he called Suzuko, his last girl, as she muttered 
" Aba, Aba"], from their 

Papa. 

August 14, 1904. 

Little Mamma Sama, — The festival is over. It 
was interesting last evening. But they did not 
give the dance. In view of the war, they withheld 
this year to raise fund for such kind of merry- 
making. 

It was with great delight that I received your 
lovely letter last night. 

This morning the waves were so high that Oto- 
kichi San helped me in my getting into the water; 
and it was too difficult to take the boy with me. 

We shall walk to Wada this afternoon. The day 
is fine indeed. The boys are regular in their daily 
study. I teach Kadzuo reading only. In the morn- 
ing I teach him and Niimi teaches Kadzuo. In the 
afternoon we exchange our pupil. 

My kisses to dear Suzuko and Kiyoshi, and kind 
words to Mamma and Grandmother. 

August 15, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — We had an Extra last night. 
Great victory! We had our own celebration here, 
drinking lemonade and eating ice. But we had no 
other extra after that. To-day we had a little wave, 
but plenty jelly-fishes. We — Kazuo, Niimi, and I — 
were bitten by them. Last night we took a short 



TO MRS. HEARN 445 

walk, and went to the shrine of the Yamatodake 
god. Kazuo caught a black dragon-fly. We have too 
many fleas here, but not many mosquitoes. The 
boys are happy. Otokichi goes always with them 
into the water. Iwao is learning how to swim, but 
it is rather diflicult, as the waves are pretty big. The 
road toward Wada has been ruined by the rush of 
waves. "Osemi" [big cicada] is singing. I think 
Kiyoshi must be lonesome at home. Kisses to *' Aba, 
Aba" from 

Papa. 

August 16. 1904. 

Little Mamma, — The weather is fine lately, but 
there are large waves. Kazuo is always happy. The 
baby of Otetsu grows big and strong. It tumbles 
down, and often tries to fly. *'Osemi" sings only 
at morning, and not when the sun is very hot. It 
is not like the cicada at Okubo Mura. Papa and his 
boy grow perfectly brown. 

I fancy that Okubo Mura must be fine with the 
new leaves of the banana tree, and also with the new 
bamboo leaves. 

*'Tsukutsukuboshi" [a kind of cicada], I think, 
must be singing in the home garden. Sweet words 
to everybody at home. 

August 17, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Your welcome letter at hand. 
It reached me this morning to my delight, and I 
can explain my joy with it in my Japanese. You 
must never think of any danger which might occur 



446 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

to your boy; I hope you do not worry about him. 
I have n't gone to the sea at night this year yet. 
Otokichi and Niimi take good care of Kazuo. He 
is perfectly safe, although he often swims in deep 
water. He is so afraid of the jelly-fishes this summer, 
but he swims and plays all the same. It was such a 
lovely thing, this charm of the Narita temple. I 
feel lonely sometimes ; I wish I could see your sweet 
face. It is difficult to sleep on account of the thick 
fleas. But as I have a delightful swim in the morn- 
ing, I usually forget the misery of the night. I take 
a little hand bath in a ridiculously little tub for the 
last two or three evenings. 

Good words to everybody at home from 

Papa. 

August 18, 1904. 

Lovely Little Mamma Sama, — The charm of 
Narita Sama [a famous Buddhist temple at Narita] 
to hand. I gave it to Otokichi, who was very glad. 
His wife is now a little better. 

Thank you for the shirts you kindly sent me. But 
please rest assured that I do not feel cold any more ; 
I am now quite strong; I have got a fresh layer of 
skin by virtue of the salt water. 

I beseech you. Mamma Sama, that you will take 
care of your own self. You must be so very busy to 
look after the masons and carpenters engaged in the 
repair-works. 

I was busy to-day, because the publishers sent me 
the proofs. But I have finished the work. The boys 
are strong and lovely. They enjoy themselves much 



TO MES. HEARN 447 

in the sea and have become black. Otokichi is kind 
to them. They study every day. 

Good-bye! loving words to lovely Mamma and 
Grandmother. Kisses to the children. 

August 19, 1904. 

Little Mamma Sama, — Your lovely letter to 
hand. I am glad to hear that the carpenters and 
masons are at work. This morning the sea was very 
rough, and I could not go for swimming. So we 
intend to take walk to Wada with Otokichi. 

Do you remember that little lame girl in this vil- 
lage? What a pity it was to see her! She has now 
much grown up. Then the boy in our next-door 
neighbour has become as big as I was and goes to 
school. He learns very well. It is two years since. 
Is n't it wonderfully rapid that all young people 
grow up.^ 

Iwao will finish his first English book very soon; 
there but remain I^ or 5 pages more to be studied. I 
have ordered Kadzuo to write these underlined 
letters. 

I am giving just a moderate work to Kadzuo and 
he does it well. It is just the reviewing, not the new 
lesson. When we return to Tokyo, I shall give him 
new lessons. At present he is diligent in penmanship, 
letter-writing, writing his diary, and English read- 
ing, so I do not press upon him. Nor do I force Iwao, 
for he does his half an hour's study very well. It is 
simply lovely to see them learn well. 

We have collected a great number of pebbles and 
put them on our window-sill. Every day Papa's 



448 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

pocket in the sleeve is filled with pebbles. What 
lovely, innocent, and pitiable creatures the children 
are! 

Good-bye! and looking forward to the time of 
seeing Mamma's lovely face, 

Koizumi Yakumo. 

August 20, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Yesterday we went to Wada, 
where we had our lunch; and there I taught Kazuo. 
He was delighted to catch the crabs. Iwao is be- 
ginning to learn how to swim. The house at Wada 
has been mended a little. The tea we had there is 
always good; and I am told that the tea is home- 
made, which might be the reason of its excellence. 
Fuji was seen clearly last evening. We cannot swim 
this morning, as the sea is so high. It was so hot 
last night we could not shut the doors. But the 
weather is always good. Iwao let his crabs walk on 
the roofs of Otokichi's house; and they walked and 
walked. During the night those crabs tried to bite 
into the box of our soap, but it was beyond their 
power to open the tin cover. How sorry ! From 

Papa. 

August 21, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Otokichi gave us plenty of 
pears in a tray yesterday, as it was the day of Bon. 
I believe it was to thank you for your gift of the 
charm the other day. We went to Wada to-day and 
had lunch there. Iwao learns well how to swim; 
and he has no fear whatever, and takes delight in 



TO MRS. HEARN 449 

the deeper water. He will be soon a fine swimmer. 
Otokiclii is very kind to us. We have no big wave, 
the sea being calm; the colours of the sky and Fuji 
Mountain are perfectly lovely. And there is no 
speck of cloud. Otokichi got a bright little boy as 
helper, and he calls him Kumakichi. The boy is 
lovely. Iwao is really black now, hard to explain; 
and you will not know him when you see him. The 
boys catch dragon-flies and grasshoppers, they laugh, 
they gather stones, they play cards, they eat much 
and sleep well. Papa is splendid too. But he cannot 
walk on the stones of the shore barefooted. I wear 
straw sandals when I go to Wada, and strange shoes 
Otokichi made when I swim. 

Sweet words to the old woman and children at 
home from 

Papa. 

August 22, 1904. 

Little Mamma Sama, — Your sweet letter and 
magazines at hand. I thank you for them. Last 
night I finished my reading of proofs of my Ameri- 
can book, and also of that of Mr. Takada's article. 
And I sent them out by mail this morning. Last 
night we had a little walk, and dropped into the 
shooting gallery together. The target is called 
"Port Arthur;" and there stands a figure of a 
Russian soldier. Iwao hit the Russian soldier. 

I must catch the mail-hour. Gomen, gomen! 

Yakumo Koizumi. 



450 LETTERS OF LAFCADIO HEARN 

August 23, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Last night we had a great 
katsuo-fishing. The boat of Tetsu's husband with 
the other five boats returned at evening. And all 
the people helped them. There in Tetsu's boat were 
one thousand seven hundred katsuo-fishes. One fish 
is sold for twenty sen. Under the torch-light the 
people are landing the fishes from the boats. It is 
so interesting to see them. 

The jelly-fishes are perfectly terrible this morn- 
ing. Papa was bitten by them. The sea is as a hell 
on their account. I do not like them at all. How- 
ever, the weather is fine. We went to take a walk 
with the boys last night, and we heard the frogs 
singing. The boys are so sweet. Niimi is kind and 
good to them. In one word, everything is first-rate, 
except those jelly-fishes. Good-bye, Mamma Sama. 
Sweet words to everybody at home from 

Papa. 

August 24, 1904. 

Little Mamma, — Yesterday it was so hot; the 
thermometer rose to ninety-one degrees. However, 
the winds blew from the sea at night. And this 
morning the waves are so high, I only take a walk. 
Otoyo gave the boys plenty of pears. Last evening, 
Kazuo and Iwao went to a shooting gallery for fun. 
We drank soda and ginger ale, and also ate ice. 

Iwao has finished his first reader; it seems that 
learning is not hard for his little head at all. He 
studied a great deal here. And he is learning from 
Mr. Niimi how to write Japanese characters. 



TO MKS. HEARN 451 

Just this moment I received your big letter. I 
am very glad to hear how you treated the snake you 
mentioned. You were right not allowing the girls 
to kill it. They only fear, as they don't understand 
that it never does any harm. I believe it must be 
a friend of Kami-sama in our bamboo bush. 

Mr. Papa and others wish to see Mamma's sweet 
face. Good words to everybody at home. 

Yakumo. 

Little Mamma, — Gomen, gomen: [Forgive me:] 
I thought only to give a little joy as I hoped. The 
Jizo I wrote you about is not the thing you will find 
in the graveyards; but it is the Jizo who shall guard 
and pacify the seas. It is not a sad kind; but you 
do not like my idea, so I have given up my project. 
It was only Papa's foolish thought. However, poor 
Jizo-sama wept bitterly when it heard of your answer 
tome. I said to it, "I cannot help it, as Mamma San 
doubted your real nature, and thinks that you are 
a graveyard keeper. I know that you are the saviour 
of seas and sailors." The Jizo is^crying even now. 

Papa. 

Gomen, gomen: 

"The Jizo idol is shedding stone-tears.'* 

[The letter, as usual, was illustrated with his 
own picture ; this time the picture was a broken idol 
shedding bean-like "stone tears." The Jizo he took 
such an interest in was not a graveyard keeper, but 
it stood on the shore as the calmer of the wild sea, 
as the Yaidzu Sea is always.] 



INDEX 



Accent, in connection with rhyme, 
208, 209. 

Ainu, the religion of, 25. 

Akasaka, 328. 

Akizuki of Aidzu, Professor of Chi- 
nese, birthday festival of, 73, 88, 
89; a visit from, 258; a type of the 
ideal old Samurai, 315. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 165, 391, 395, 
396. 

Amamura, Japanese village, 416. 

Amenomori, Nobushige, 384. 

American, magazines, 34; physiog- 
nomy, 46. 

Amiel, Henri Frederic, 72. 

Anarchists, 372. 

Ancestral, memories, inheritance of, 
213; tendencies, influence of, 221, 
222; tendencies, genius explained 
by, 256; ghosts, 267. 

Andersen, Hans Christian, 201. 

Anderson, William, 156. 

Animals, souls of, 338, 429-431. 

Anstey, F., pseud. See Guthrie. 

Archery, Japanese, 304, 305, 337, 339. 

Architecture, Gothic, Hearn on, xxvii; 
Gothic and Greek, 24; in Italy,. 160; 
at open ports, 402. 

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 110; his Japanese 
drama, 422; address of, to the La- 
dies' Educational Association, 424. 

Arnold, Matthew, his criticism of 
Wordsworth, 218. 

Arrows of prayers, 13. 

Art, Japanese, snow in, 56; idealism 
in, 109, 110; Japanese, old and new, 
118, 119; Eastern and Western, 
some peculiarities in, explained by 
sexual idea, 122; Japanese, con- 
trast presented in, 217; Japanese 
and Greek, anatomy plays no part 
in, 228, 229; of the Latins, as illus- 
trated by Loti, 393. 

Artist, the, his duty to extract the 
gold from the ore, xlvii. 

Artistic sensitiveness conjoined with 
ferocity, 289-291. 



Asakichi, Yasukochi, student, 310, 
315-318, 326. 

Aston, William George, 358. 

Atheists, 330. 

Atlantic Monthly, editor of, condemns 
use of Japanese words, 105; a criti- 
cism in, 160; articles in, 293, 330; 
the pay given by, 210; goes in for 
fine work, 210; stories of, 371. 

Autograph-hunters, 295, 296. 

Avaloketesvara Sutra, the, 348. 

Awata-ware factory at Kyoto, 405. 

Ayame, 348. 

Babies, Japanese, 177. 

Bacon, Alice, 96, 433. 

Bacon, Francis, 287. 

Baissac, Charles, his Grammar of the 
Mauritian Creole, 7. 

Ballads, Daikokumai, 196, 335, 371, 
375; rhyme in, 207, 225, 234; of Kip- 
ling, 380, 381. 

Balzac, Honore de, compared with 
Zola, 157; his Contes Drolatiques, 
188, 189; his La Belle Imperia. 199. 

Bamboo, Missy, 178. 

Bamboo curtains, 163. 

Batchelor, John, on the religion of the 
Ainu, 25. 

Bateiseki stone, 414. 

Bates, Henry Walter, indififerent to 
poetical aspects of Nature, 151. 

Bath, household, use of, in Japan, 148. 

Bathing resorts, Japanese, 13. 

Baths, public, Japanese, singing in, 
250. 

Bato-Kwannon, Japanese divinity, 
427, 429, 430, 431. 

Baudelaire, Pierre Charles, his use of 
language, xliv; the wonderful in- 
sanities of, 135; quoted, 186; third 
among the Romantic poets, 187; 
his Fleurs de Mai, 224 ; his poem on 
an albatross, 228. 

Bears, Japanese custom about, 338. 

Beauty, the worship of, 197, 198; of 
eyes and skin, 268-272. 



454 



INDEX 



Bells, Hearn's sensibility to, xxxvi. 

Beppu, Japanese village, 418. 

Beranger, Pierre Jean de, 9. 

Bhagavad-Gita, the, 314, 333. 

Bible, the. 314, 368, 374. 

Biography, the favourable and the 
critical, v. 

Bird, Isabella L. (Mrs. Bishop), lii, 
268; on the religion of the Ainu, 25. 

Birthday festival, Japanese, 73, 88, 
89. 

Bjornson, Bjornstjerne, 200. 

Black. William, 215. 

Blackwood, translations of Heine in, 
136, 137. 

Bland, Mrs. Edith Nesbit (E. Nesbit), 
quoted, 230. 

Boat song, a Japanese, 117. 

Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas, 164, 374. 

Bon-odori, a Japanese dance, 421, 422. 

Books, test of, desire of re-reading, 
xlv, 192. 

Borrow, George, hisThe Bible in Spain, 
259. 

Bouilhet, Louis, a translation from, 
by Hearn, 210, 211. 

Bourget, Paul, 425; Heam's views on, 
49-55, 136. 

Bowring, Edgar Alfred, his transla- 
tions from Heine, 137. 

Bows, Japanese, 304, 305, 337, 339. 

Brachet, Auguste, his Historical 
Grammar and Etymological French 
Dictionary, 205, 206. 

Brahma, 311, 312, 314. 

Bridge-superstitions, Japanese, 265. 

Brinkley, — , 424. 

Brower, Edith, her Is the Musical 
Faculty Masculine?, 293. 

Browning, Robert, xlvi, 173, 263. 

Buckle, Henry Thomas, 75. 

Buddhism, Hearn would like a re- 
vival of, 17, 18; vindicates holiness 
of womankind, 27; value of a re- 
generation of, 121; Hearn changes 
his views on, 128; influence of, upon 
the treatment of animals, 250; state 
of, in Japan, 252, 253; Nirvana, 284; 
indifferent about preserving its past, 
404 ; gives us consolatory ideas on the 
meaning of life, 413; and idols, 422. 

Buddhist, and Shinto deities, 28, 29; 
saying, a, 40; idea, a, 104; temple 
and gardens, 404. 

Burchard, Jean, 165. ' 



Burns, Robert, his Auld Lang Syne, 

240. 
Byron, George Gordon Noel, Baron, 

263; his use of the "rich rhymes," 

206; quoted, 219; had passion, force, 

and imagination, 369. 

Canals of Mars, 877. 

Carlyle, Thomas, Hearn's opinion of, 
121, 122; his statement that pain, 
etc., are the greatest attraction to 
men's souls, 130. 

Carroll, Lewis, his nonsense books, 
114. 

Catechism of Goux, the, 362. 

Catholicism, Roman, one must live 
outside it to understand it, 388. 

Cats in Japan, 251. 

Caves near Kaka-ura, 18, 19. 

Chamberlain, Basil Hall, on Hearn's 
marriage, viii; his Japanese studies, 
lii; on Hearn's behef in Ghosts, Iv; 
his Handbook of Colloquial Japan- 
ese, 6; visits Hearn, 67; his Japan- 
ese, 71; his article on fans, 73; on 
the value of musical terms to de- 
scribe colour, 110, 112; on the use 
of foreign words, 105, 113, 116, 124; 
his Classical Poetry, 125, 255, 336; 
receives advice from Hearn as to 
his health, 126-128; his Things 
Japanese, 148, 164, 168, 250, 266, 
431; on rhyme alternation, 193; 
criticizes Hearn, 197, 217; the effect 
of darkness upon, 212; his compari- 
son about Wordsworth, 228; a trans- 
lation by, 237; his translations of 
Japanese poems, 255; has trouble 
with his Japanese assistants, 331; 
Hearn occupies his house, 342- 
362; his views on poetry, 368, 369; 
has trouble with his eyes, 371; has 
throat trouble, 377, 380; his kojiki, 
390, 412; Hearn vexed with, 391. 

Character, effect of education on, 52, 
53. 

Charlevoix, Pierre Frangoia Xavier de, 
324, 347. 

Chess, 246. 

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stan- 
hope, Lord, XX. 

Childhood, feelings of earliest, 212. 

Children, Japanese love of, 238, 296. 

China, natural friend of Japan, 118. 

Chinese, the, and America, 93; emi- 



INDEX 



455 



gration of, 204 ; their daintiest 
poems suggestive rather than ex- 
pressive, 205; in Kobe, 318, 319; 
their myths, 389, 390. 

Chion-in, Japanese temple, 404. 

Christianity, a religion of hate, 14; 
Japan has nothing to gain by, 39; 
our ethics have outgrown, 39; the 
name must be discarded, 39, 40; 
and Whittier, 149; associated, in 
Ream's mind, with hypocrisy, 154; 
Japanese disgusted at its many 
creeds, 253; virtues of, found in 
countries not highly civilized, 429. 

Church, the, in the Middle Ages, 48. 

Cincinnati, Hearn's life in, viii. 

Cities which city-haters hate, 264. 

Civilization, morally not all we be- 
lieve it, 14; Hearn doubts that it is 
a benefit, 57; based on immorality, 
326; the atrocities of modern, 372; 
morality and immorality in, 377- 
379; is stagnant, 387; a most damn- 
able thing, 436. 

Civilization, Western, its efifect on 
the Japanese, 10; behind the old 
Japanese, 32; steeped in an atmos- 
phere of artificially created pas- 
sionalism, 79; its enormous cost, 
167; the material side of, 326, 327. 

Classic school, French and English, 
374. 

Clifford, William Kingdon, 314. 

Climate, Japanese, 25, 26, 171. 

Coleridge, Samuei Taylor, 218, 263, 
284. 

Cologne cathedral, 24. 

Colour, in words and letters, xxxi- 
xxxiii, 105-107, 113; Hearn's sense 
of, xxxiii; musical terms descrip- 
tive of, 110, 112. 

Comedy, Hearn's views on, 99, 100. 

Commune in 1871, paper on, 303. 

Competition, 326, 327. 

Composition, literary, Hearn's me- 
thod of, 42-44, 57-60. 

Composition, a composite, 107-109; 
on the Story of the Three Caskets, 
132, 133. 

Compositions of Japanese students, 
extracts from, 191, 236, 237, 260, 
261, 282, 283, 289, 323, 324, 328- 
3.S0, 333-336, 383. 

Cotider, Josiah, 162, 433. 

Convent and monastery, the words, 22. 



Conventions of life, in Open Ports of 
Far East, 262, 263; in Protestant 
countries, 263; English and Ameri- 
cans go to Italy and France to 
avoid, 264; value of, 264. 

Conway, Hugh, pseud. See Fargus. 

Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, 219. 

Costume, Japanese, in hot weather, 
140, 141, 147, 373; still worn, 233. 

Coulanges, Numa Denis, Fustel de 
his La Cits Antique, 111, 286, 367 

Courtesans as heroines, 198, 199. 

Crawford, Francis Marion, 214, 215. 

Creole, dialects and grammars, 7, 362, 
370; pamphlets, 373; compositions 
375. 

Crime, in the light of evolutional phi 
losophy, 222; story of a, 289, 290. 

Curtis, George William, his Howadji 
in Syria, 264. 

Daibutsu, the, at Kamakura, 27. 
Daibutz, temple at Nara, 409, 410. 
Daikoku, Japanese deity, the rat as a 

retainer of, 29. 
Daikokumai, 281. 
Daikokumai Ballads, 190, 335, 371, 

375. 
Daizo Koto Chugakko, the, 295. 
Dances, miko, 300, 301, 407, 409, 412; 

at festivals, 327; bon-odori, 421, 

422. 
Darwin, Charles Bobert, 50, 51. 
Daudet, Alphonse, Hearn's opinion of, 

136; his short stories, 200. 
Death, 284. 
Decadence, Hearn's attitude toward 

the tendency of the school of, xliv- 

xlvi, 307, 308. 
Deinbovitzu, the bard of the, 357. 
Deland, Margaret, her Philip and his 

Wife, 293, 330, 384. 
Dening, Walter, 23, 423, 424, 428. 
De Quincey, Thomas, his charm van- 
ished for Hearn, 148, 149. 
Dialects, Creole, 7, 376. 
Dickens, Charles, 435. 
Dickins, F. V., Loyal League, 87. 
Dickson, Walter G., 348. 
Dobson, Austin, 387. 
Dogo, island, 414, 432. 
Dogs, Japanese and Western, 250, 

251. 
Dostoievsky, Fyodor Mikh^ylovitch, 

55; his Crime et Chdtiment, 200. 



456 



INDEX 



Dozen Islands, the, 414, 416, 417. 
Drawings of Japanese, contrasts pre- 
sented in, 217. See Art. 
Dreams, fear in, 213, 214. 

Earthquakes, 133. 328, 350, 368, 375. 

Eastlake, F. W., his Equine Deities 
and Kirin, 427. 

Eating, Hearn on, 127, 128, 130, 131. 

Eclectic, the, papers in, 292, 303, 326. 

Education, effect on character, 52, 53; 
defects of systems of, 74-76; case of 
over-worked student, 84; highest, 
for man of marked capacity only, 
249; sacrifices made for, by Japan- 
ese, 319; in Japan, makes atheists, 
330; Government, in Japan, 340. 

Educational system. Western, its ob- 
ject to delay puberty and its emo- 
tions, 79; Japanese, 98, 184, 258, 
259; English, good results of, 150; 
Japanese, reactionary movement 
in, 247-249. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 305. 

Edwards, Osman, letters of Hearn to, 
quoted, xlii-xlvi; on Hearn, xlvii. 

Elizabethan writers, 100. 

Elysium, the word, 146. 

Emotion, Hearn on the value of, xxx, 
42; expression of, and music, rela- 
tion between, 205; Hearn on poetry 
and, 368, 369. 

England, freedom in, 286, 287. 

English, self-suppression, 45, 46; edu- 
cational system, good results of, 
150; studies, should be permitted to 
most gifted Japanese students only, 
325; prints, 361; classic school, 374. 

Entrance of the Prussians into Paris, 
paper on, 292. 

Etagima, 176. 

Eternal Feminine, the, Japanese and 
Western attitude toward, 79, 125, 
162, 163 ; Hearn proposes to write 
about, 122, 137. 

Evolutional philosophy, woman and 
crime seen in the light of, 221-223, 
231; some thoughts about, 351, 352; 
to be applied to philology, 389; 
religions explained by, 391. 

Eyes, Hearn's, vii, 294, 295; beauty 
in, 268-270. 

Fairy Tales, Japanese, 311, 320. 
Fans, religious, 73. 



Fardel, — , 380, 386. 

Fargus, Frederick John (Hugh Con- 
way), his Called Back, 87. 

Festivals, Japanese, 73, 88, 89, 170, 
171, 327, 443, 444. 

Feuillet, Octave, 283. 

Finns, the, are truly musical, 205. 

Fiske, John, 253. 

FitzGerald, Edward, xx. 

Flaubert, Gustave, on several of his 
works, 135, 187; represents the ex- 
travagance of the Romantic labori- 
ousness of art, 188. 

Folk-lore, 336, 337, 357, 371, 375, 389, 
390, 417-418, 419. 

Foreign words, on the use of, xxxiii, 
105, 113-117, 124, 125. 

Foreigners, difficult for them to under- 
stand the Japanese, 84, 220, 412, 
437; Japanese hatred of, 119, 120, 
227; teachers, and Japanese stu- 
dents, 235, 236, 247. 248; have trou- 
ble with spirit of restlessness in the 
Japanese, 331; lack of sympathy 
for, in Japan, 359. 

Fortier, Alc^e, on the Louisiana pa- 
tois, 376. 

Fox, superstition, 16, 431; deities, 
66, 67; story, 123, 124, 294, 295; 
temples and rites in Shinto, 253; 
belief in, in Dozen, 416; the fox- 
possessed, 429; ghost, 431. 

France, Anatole, xlv, xlvi. 

Freedom, 286, 287. 

French, Orientalists, 358; classic 
school, 374; character, 396. 

Frenchmen, lack of spirituality in, 54, 
55; think only with their nerves, 
63; economical, but make others 
spend money, 318. 

Froude, James Anthony, 199, 304. 

Fuji, mountain, 332. 

Funazamurai, the phrase, 138. 

Games, commemorative, 184, 185. 

Gardens, temple, 404. 

Gautier, Theophile,^ his use of lan- 
guage, xliv; his Emaux et CamSes, 
xliv, 134; his Musee Secret, xlv, 63; 
Hearn's views on, 63, 64, 134, 135; 
quoted, 64, 92; unequalled as a pure 
artist, 186; second among the 
Romantic poets, 187; Mallock on, 
197; his Arria Marcella, 198; alliter- 
ation in, 203; some books of, 203, 



INDEX 



457 



204; his La Morte Amoureuse, 223, 
224; his tales adapted to the eye 
rather than to the ear, 371. 

Gayarre, Charles, 130. 

Geisha, 171, 301, 407, 409. 

Genius, that a book should gain with 
every reading, the sign of, xlv, 192; 
Hearn a believer in, 256; want of, 
the literary curse of the century, 
256; explainable by the ancestral 
hypothesis, 256. 

Ghosts, Hearn's belief in, Iv, 212- 
215. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, 429. 

Globe trotters, 91, 92, 365, 366, 

Goblin-dogs, 431. 

Goblins, 26, 27. 

God, some Japanese views on, 334, 
335; what he is, unknown, 378; 
Lecky on the theological conception 
of, 424. 

Gods, Japanese, 8, 28, 29, 46, 47, 100, 
181, 375, 408-410, 413, 427-429. 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 195, 
263; quoted, 238; his The New 
Melusine, 264, 265. 

Gogol, Nikolai Vassilievitch, 200. 

Goka, district in Yalsushiro, 338. 

Gothic architecture, xxvii, 24, 160. 

Government schools in Japan, 225, 
226. 

Greek, architecture, 24; church, the, 
49; art, 198; sculpture, acquaint- 
ance with anatomy plays no part 
in, 228, 229; fables, 308, 309. 

Greslon, Robert, 50, 52. 

Griffis, William Elliot, 328. 

Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, biographer 
of Poe, V. 

Guthrie, Thomas Anstey (F. Anstey), 
his Giant's Robe, 86. 

Gypsy matters, 259, 260. 

Hachimau, 170. 

Hakodate, Japanese city, 311. 

Hall, Captain Basil, 361. 

Harper's Magazine, 5. 

Harte, Bret, 165. 

Hasegawa, 342, 359. 

Hattori, Ichizo, 4. 

Hauk, Minnie, 353. 

Haunters in Japan, 173, 174. 

Hayward, Abraham, his translation of 

Faust, 137. 
Hearn, Lafcadio, Stedman on, v; mis- 



statements and legends about his 
life, vi-x; summary of the facts of 
his life, x; number and richness of 
his letters surprising, xvii, xx, xxi; 
contrast of his life at Izumo and 
Kumamoto, xviii; conditions com- 
bined to make of him a creator 
of famous letters, xx; his letters a 
revelation of himself, xxi-xxiii; his 
letters the record of a Man, xxiii- 
xxv; his capacity for sacrifice and for 
fury, xxv; shrunk from publicity of 
personality, xxv; the sahent quali- 
ties of his personality, xxvi; his 
life's purpose same from the first, 
xxvi; his literary models, xxvii; on 
Gothic architecture, xxvii, 24, 160; 
on Victor Hugo, xxvii; Noguchi on, 
xxxi, xxxix, xl; his integration of 
purpose for an ideal end, xxviii, 
xxix; his sensitiveness, xxix-xxxviii; 
expended great labour on his writing, 
XXX ; on the colour, form, charac- 
ter, etc., of words, xxxi-xxxiii, 105- 
107, 113; his sense of colour, xxxiii; 
his quickness of observation, xxxiv; 
his sensibility to sounds, xxxvi; his 
sensibility to smells, xxxvii; his sen- 
sibility to touch, xxxvii; his timidity 
and shyness, xxxvii; his lack of ca- 
pacity to fit easily into the social 
organization, xxxviii; sought peace 
in solitude, xxxviii, xxxix; com- 
pared to Akinari Uyeda, xxxix; the 
innate beauty and sensuous image- 
ry of his work, xl-xliv; his attitude 
toward the tendency of the school 
of decadence, xliv-xlvi, 307, 308; on 
the artist, xlvii; Osman Edwards 
on, xl vii ; his reproductions of humble 
beauties, xlviii; sample of his style 
on sterner matters, xlix; why he 
first went to Japan, 1; his first im- 
pressions of Japan, li. Hi; his inter- 
pretation of Japan, liii, liv; his belief 
in ghosts, Iv, 212-215; a mystic, 
Ivi; in sympathy with Oriental 
faiths, Ivi, Iviii, lix; born too late for 
an anthropomorphic vision of a 
deity, Ivii; a believer in Spencer's 
theories, Iviii, 221-223, 231; desir- 
ous of writing a good book upon 
Japan, 3; desirous of obtaining a 
place in a private family, 3, 5; en- 
cbauted with Japan, 5, 13; desirous 



458 



INDEX 



of teaching in Japanese school, 6, 7; 
on Japanese life and thought, 10, 
11; on Mionoseki and Sakai, 12, 13; 
on Japanese morals, religion, and 
view of hfe, 14, 15; his religious 
views, 14, 17, 18, 27, 39, 40, 121, 
128, 149, 154, 250, 252, 253, 284; on 
the educated modernized Japanese, 
17; on homoeopathy, 17; visits Kaka- 
ura and the neighbouring caves, 18, 
19; on Spanish and Japanese music, 
20, 21; on tropical climate, 21, 70; 
on writing Japanese conversation, 
23; on Gothic and Greek architec- 
ture, 24; wishes to go to Manila, 20, 
24, 70, 119, 320; on the worship of 
the Needles and the religion of the 
Ainu, 24, 25; on the Japanese cli- 
mate, 25, 26; on the goblin wolf, 26, 
27; on his new home at Kumamoto, 
28; on Shinto and Buddhist deities, 
28, 29; has exhausted capacity for 
sensation in a Japanese city, 30, 59, 
60; on the old Japanese civihzation, 
32, 33; the financial returns from 
his writings, 33, 34, 107, 209, 210, 
359; intends to try English pub' 
lishers for Japanese sketches, 34^ 
41; on personality, 34, 35; on Ja- 
panese sensitiveness and placidity, 
35-38; detests the New Japan, 38; 
his home life in Japan, 40; remin- 
iscences of his early life, 41, 48, 370; 
his method of writing, 42-44, 57-60; 
on Japanese wedding customs, 44, 
45 ; on English, American, and East- 
ern self-control, 45, 46; on Japanese 
vows, 46, 47; on Samurai girls, 47; 
his feeling toward Jesuits, 49, 386; 
on the evolution of sentiment, 50- 
52; on the effect of education on 
character, 52, 54; on existence of 
right and wrong, 53; on lack of spir- 
ituality in Latin races, 54, 55; on 
faith in future possibilities beyond 
scientific recognition, 55, 56; on 
Japanese writing, 63; on Dona Lu7, 
64-66; two early adventures of, 
when learning Spanish, 65, 66; on a 
visit from Chamberlain, 67; on 
Chamberlain's Japanese, 71; on 
the new Director, 76, 77; on the 
sexual question in Western and 
Eastern civilizations, 77-81; his 
treatment by the Japanese, 82-84; 



on the approach of summer, 85, 86; 
his story of the manufactured man, 
87; his inability to write a Japanese 
novel, 88; his story of Lowell's letter 
and telegram, 94-96; tires of Orien- 
tal life, 97; his views on comedy, 99, 
100; on being asked to write for 
money, 100-102; an original Bud- 
dhist idea of, 104; on use of foreign 
words, 105, 113-117, 124, 125; ex- 
tracts from compositions of his stu- 
dents, 107-109, 132, 133, 191, 236, 
237, 260, 261, 282, 283, 289, 323, 324, 
328-330, 334-336, 383; on idealism 
in art, 109, 110; his reading. 111, 
347-349; on the effect of words upon 
the mind, 114-117; the boat song he 
heard at Mionoseki, 117; wishes to 
spend some time in Spanish and 
French colonies, 119; his relation to 
his students, 120, 121; on eating, 
127, 128, 130, 131; gives good ad- 
vice to Chamberlain, 126-128; 
changes his views on Buddhism and 
Shinto, 128; gets no literary mate- 
rial at Kumamoto, 131; pessimistic 
about Japan, 132, 412; on various 
authors, 135, 136, 164, 165, 186-189, 
199-201; starts on a trip to Naga- 
saki, 139; his impressions of Naga- 
saki, 140-142, 145, 146, 152, 153; 
on Japanese dress in hot weather, 
141, 147; at Misumi, 142; his day- 
dreams, 143-145; returns to Ku- 
mamoto, 145; on typhoon weather, 
150; gets lost in the mountains, 155; 
on Japanese smells and the sense of 
smell, 160, 161 ; on discovering jewels 
in inferior poets, 161, 162; his work 
at the school, 165, 166, 168, 169; 
on action of Christian students at 
Shinto temple, 169; the Legend of 
his house, 173-176; visit of Loo- 
chooan students to the school, 174; 
the preliminary training of his stu- 
dents, 175; studies Japanese babies, 
177; a sample of his daily life, 178- 
182; has the malaria, 184; on the 
commemoration games, 184; on 
fighting the Infinite, 191; his chil- 
dren, 207, 208, 238, 239, 296-303, 
321, 339, 362, 441-451; always in a 
state of hope for a new sensation, 
208; forced into philosophical writ- 
ing by the Atlantic, 210; his transla- 



INDEX 



459 



tion of Bouilhet's The Mummy, 210, 
211; his knowledge of the Japanese 
not obtained from personal obser- 
vation, 220; refuses request that his 
family become English citizens, 
225; hissed on the street, 227; would 
not live outside Japan, 232, 233; 
thinks of taking students unto his 
house, 235; on Japanese and foreign 
teachers, 234, 235; makes a speech, 
239; affected by Auld Lang Syne, 
240, 241; pessimistic perceptions of, 
243; hates indexing, 245, 246, 254; 
his feelings about chess, 246; blue 
. over reactionary tendency in educa- 
*^ . tion in Japan, 247-249 ; profoundly 
religious, 252; on Chamberlain's 
translations of Japanese poems, 
255-257; on a jiujutsu school, 258, 
259; his wife keeps back H. M. & 
Ca contract, 261; Japanese life has 
unfitted him to endure conventions, 
262; on beauty in eyes and skins, 
268-272; his advice to students 
as to course of study, 278, 279; 
thoughts of, on motion, 284, 285; 
his memory of a day of travel and a 
young pilgrim, 287, 288; his story of 
a crime and a serenade, 289-291; 
on the paper on the Entrance of 
the Prussians into Paris, 292; his 
method of reading, 293, 294; and 
autograph-hunters, 295, 296; his 
trip to Moji, Tadotsu,'the Kompira- 
uchi-machi, 296-303; writes a meta- 
physical article on Japanese mir- 
rors, 303; learns to shoot with the 
Japanese bow, 304, 305, 337, 339; 
school-gossip from, 305-307; begins 
to understand Greek fables, 308, 
309; on Japanese plurals, 309; longs 
for open ports, 309, 310; on two of 
his students, 310, 311; tempted to 
go to Hakodate, 311 ; suggests a new 
Japanese Fairy Tale Series, 311, 
320; his early illusions about Japan 
gone, 313, 323; on the Bible, 314; 
his conversation with Osakichi, 
315-318, 326; and Takagi, 318, 319; 
thinks of resigning place at school 
and talk with Sakurai, 321, 322; on 
renewal of contract with school, 
325, 426; on the abolition of English 
studies at school, 325 ; his birthday, 
332; on Nature, 332, 333; thinks he 



has a soul, 333; at Kamakura, 340; 
goes to Yokohama, 340-342; comes 
out of his solitude and is impressed 
with civiUzation, 340, 341; at To- 
kyo, 342-362; his judgment on the 
open ports, 343, 344; on morality 
and duty, 344-346; on Tolstoiism, 
352, 353; his dream after reading 
Carmen, 353, 354; thoughts sug- 
gested to, by the Tokyo Club, 354, 
355; his manner of life in Chamber- 
lain's house, 355; and Mason, at 
Otsu, 356; uncertainty of, regarding 
future, 356, 357; his library of an- 
cient days, 357, 358 ; impressions re- 
ceived by, from living in Chamber- 
lain's house, 359-361; his actount 
of occurrences of his trip, 363-367; 
his grey hair, 366; affected by ner- 
vous lonesomeness, 368; his views 
on masterpieces and inferior poets, 
369; his early reading of the At- 
lantic stories, 371, 372; his Impe- 
rial gift, 376, 383; his robber, 376; 
on morality, God, and right and 
wrong, 377-379; tired of Kuma- 
moto, 379; on Japanese treatj% 381, 
382; on future demoralization of 
Japan, 382; accepts Kobe offer, 383; 
on modern Philistinism, 384, 385; 
his views on philology and myths, 
389-391; takes up newspaper work, 
391; vexed with Mason and Cham- 
berlain, 391 ; his house at Kobe, 
394; his work on paper at Kobe, 
394, 395; his absorption of sub- 
stance of Chamberlain's letters, 396; 
at Kyoto, 401-407; disappointed in 
Kyoto, 403; at Mionoseki, 407, 408; 
at Kobe, 409-411; at Moji, 411- 
413; at Saigo, 414, 415; in Oki, 415- 
420; returns to Kumamoto, 420; 
anxious to meet Mason, 432; finds 
it difficult to write about Japan, 
433; complains of the absence of 
anything to stir his feeling in Japan, 
433; asks Mason to write him of 
things touching or noble in every- 
day life, 434; on being in a big city 
without money, 434, 435; letters of, 
to Mrs. Heam, 441-451. 
Writings : 

Chita, xli, 41, 96; Dream of a 
Summer Day, The, 146; Dust, xlix; 
Future of the Orient, The, 239; 



460 



INDEX 



Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, xxxv, 
xxxvi, li-liii, 99, 426; Japan: An 
Attempt at an Interpretation, liii; 
Japanese Civilization, liv; Japan- 
ese Smile, The, 30; Jiujutsu, 183, 
185, 233, 343; Kokoro, liv; Kwai- 
dan, xxxvi; Making of Tilottama, 
The, xlii; Out of the East, 384; Red 
Bridal, 373; Romance of the Open 
Ports, The, 343; Some Chinese 
Ghosts, 4; Stone Buddha, 155, 172, 
185; Wish Fulfilled, A, 377; Youma, 
8; Yuko, 375. 

Hearn, Mrs., 71, 145, 176, 179, 232, 
261. 299; letters to, 441-451. 

Heat, 139-141, 332, 367, 368, 373. 

Heine, Heinrich, his Pilgrimage to 
Kevlaar, 64; the nervous power in 
his work, 99, 100; translations of, 
136, 137. 

Henley, William Ernest, 387. 

Hepburn, James Curtis, his Japanese 
Dictionary, 23. 

Hinton, James, his Mystery of Pain, 
379. 

Hishiminato, harbour of, 415. 

Hishimura, 415-418. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 287. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, light as a 
poet, 165; his Elsie Venner, 201; on 
answering autograph-hunters, 295, 
296. 

Hommyoji temple, 429. 

Homoeopathy, 17. 

Hongwanji, the new Japanese tem- 
ple, 403. 

Horai (the Greek word), li, 146. 

Horai, place in Japan, 174, 175. 

Horses in Japan, 250, 251. 

Hotels in Japan, European and na- 
tive, 141, 142; at Nagasaki, 141, 
142, 152, 153; at Misumi, 142; at 
Tadotsu, 299; at Toraya, 301; at 
Hakodate, 311; at Kobe, 392, 401; 
at Kyoto, 401; at Nara, 409. 

Howells, William Dean, 126, 215. 

Hugo, Victor, and Gothic architec- 
ture, xxvii, 24; his use of language, 
xliv; compared with Heine, 64, 
wrote from an overflowing imagi- 
nation and a big heart, 136; first 
among the Romantic poets, 187; 
carries cosmic emotion in his sim- 
plicity, 208. 

Humming, the word, 375. 



Huxley, Thomas Henry, on Shake- 
speare, 308. 
Hyakkwan, Japanese village, 139. 

Ichigo, 338. 

Ideal, the highest is aspirational, 198. 

Idealism, in art, 109, 110; the old, the 
fault of, 159. 

Idol, the word, 422. 

Iki-ryo, 174-176. 

Inari, 66. 

Indexing, Hearn on, 245, 246, 254, 
255. 

Individuality among the Japanese, 
10, 11, 163, 322, 323, 401. 

Individuation, Spencer on, 30; cost of, 
90. 

Industrialism, 327. 

Infinite, fighting the, 191. 

Insects, Japanese, 146. 

Insensibility, comparative, of the 
Japanese, 102. 

Intellect, sensuaUty and puritamsm 
of, 396, 397. 

Italian, cathedrals, 160; character, 
the, 396. 

Ito-nishiki, a Japanese stuff, 405. 

Iwao, 443-450. 

lya, 408. 

Izumo, contrasted with Kumamoto, 
xviii; feudal life of, xviii, xxxviii, li; 
artists in, 8; Hearn's Hfe in, 11; a 
household ceremony practised in, 
25; a superstition of the peasantry 
in, 26; a wedding custom in, 44, 45; 
Hearn kindly treated in, 82; stu- 
dents of, 168; crowds, 170; games 
in, 184; sincere character of loyalty 
in, 190; formality in, 220; all soft, 
gentle, old-fashioned in, 434. 

James, Henry, on Loti's works, 61 ; a 
marvellous psychologist, 215. 

James, J. M., his translation of the 
Discourse upon Infinite Vision, 16. 

James, Mrs. T. H., her version of the 
Matsuyama Kagami, 277. 

Japan, reason for Hearn's going to, 
1; Hearn's first impressions of, li; 
the Westerner's impression of. Hi; 
Hearn's interpretation of, liii, liv; 
Hearn desirous of writing a good 
book upon, 3; Hearn enthusiastic 
about, 5; life in, difficulty of com- 
prehending, 6, 185, 202; pottery in. 



INDEX 



461 



8; life and thought in, charm of, 10, 
11; social life in, individuality in, 
10, 11, 163, 322, 323, 401; bathing 
resorts in, 13; music in, 21; climate 
of, 25, 26, 139-141, 171, 332, 387, 
368, 373; the New, 38, 412; soporific 
atmosphere of, 42; wedding customs 
in, 44, 45; missionaries in, 47, 103, 
104, 118, 147, 190; fans in, 73; festi- 
vals in, 73, 88, 89, 170, 171, 327, 443, 
444; on throwing it open to mixed 
residence, 93; afraid of Russia, 118; 
China her natural friend, 118; mod- 
ernization of, 132, 226, 227, 254, 
411, 412; Hearn pessimistic about, 
132, 412; increase of crime in, 138; 
steamers of, 139, 140, 297-299,411; 
use of the household bath in, 148; 
smells in, 160, 161, 266, 417; stu- 
dents in, 165, 166, 168, 169, 174, 
175, 225, 226, 234-236, 277-282, 
278, 279, 284, 310, 311, 315-319, 
325, 326, 328-330, 423; students in, 
extracts from their compositions, 
107-109, 132, 133, 191, 236, 237, 
260, 261, 282, 283, 289, 323, 324, 
328-330, 334-336, 383; babies in, 
177; earthquakes in, 183, 328, 350, 
368, 375; revelations of, 185; Jin- 
goism in, 189; disintegration in, 191, 
248; presents in, 224, 225; singing in 
public baths in, 250; dogs in, 250, 
251 ; cats in, 251 ; horses in, 251, 252; 
state of religion in, 252-254; the 
passing of the best in, 254; life in, 
the laissez-faire of, 262; Hearn's 
early illusions about, gone, 313; sys- 
tem of morals in, cultivated honour, 
loyalty, and unselfishness, 316; edu- 
cation in, 84, 98, 184, 247-249, 258, 
259, 319; lack of sympathy in, for 
foreigners, 359; treaty of, 381, 382; 
future demoralization of, 382; tem- 
ples in, 73, 403, 404, 409, 410, 415, 
421, 428, 429; shrines in, 427; 
snakes in, 428. 
Japanese, the, Hearn's attitude to- 
ward, xviii, xix; their sense of the 
strange and grotesque, xxvii; re- 
ligion of, liv, 14, 15, 25, 252-254; 
their language, difficulty of under- 
standing, 6, 220; unspeculative 
character of, 10; individuality of, 
10. 11, 163, 322, 323, 401; their 
attitude toward foreign faiths, 14; 



their morals and religion, compared 
with those of the Christians, 14; 
their view of life, 14, 15; their creed 
of preexistence and transmigration, 
15; the educated, modernized, 17; 
their faint resemblance to the Lat- 
ins, 23; their lack of personality, 31, 
32; civilization of the old, 32, 33; 
their sensitiveness, 35-38; their pla- 
cidity, 36-38; better than the Chris- 
tians, 39; their self-control, 45, 46, 
247; their vows, 46, 47; their art, 
56, 57, 118, 119, 228, 229; their su- 
perstitions, 68, 69; their ideas on 
the sexual question, 77-81, 163; their 
treatment of Hearn, 82-84, 227; dif- 
ficulty of understanding their char- 
acter, 84, 220, 412, 437; their lack of 
power to think, 97, 98; their educa- 
tional system, 98, 184; comparative 
insensibility of, 102; their hatred of 
Romish missionaries, 103, 104; their 
songs, 117, 206, 277, 278, 327; their 
hatred of foreigners, 119, 120, 227; 
and Buddhism, 1.21; their dress in 
hot weather, 140, 141, 147, 373; a 
riddle of, 201, 202; daintiest poems 
of, suggestive rather than expres- 
sive, 205; contrasts presented in 
their drawings, 217; their costume 
still worn, 233; students and teach- 
ers, relations between, 234-236; 
their love of children, 238, 296; a 
lullaby of, 239; mind of, and Euro- 
pean mind, difference between, 244, 
245, 247; do not think in relations, 
244, 247; eyes and skin of, 268-271; 
poems of, 255; their women, Loti 
on, 266-268; bows of, 304, 305; lan- 
guage of, plurals in, 308; sacrifices 
made for education by, 319; spirit 
of restlessness in, 331 ; their lack of 
sentiment for Nature, 332, 333; a 
people with no souls, 333, 334; bear 
custom of; 338; myths of, 389, 390; 
custom of, at death of animals, 429- 
431. 

Jesuits, 48, 49, 386. 

Jewish novelists, 55, 374. 

Jingoism in Japan, 189. 

JInosuke, Arakawa, 9. 

Jinrikisha, the word, 105. 

Jiujutsu school, a, 258, 259. 

Jizo, 18, 19, 44, 45, 415, 441, 451. 

Job, Book of, quoted, 333. 



462 



INDEX 



Kadzuo, 441-450. 

Kaisuiyoku, Japanese bathing resort, 
13. 

Kaji, the Adventures of, 296-303. 

Kaka-ura, 18, 19. 

Kamakura, 27, 340. 

Kami-sama, the, 181. 

Kannushi, the, 26, 174, 408. 

Karashishi, 67. 

Kasuga, 409, 412. 

Kawafuchi, student, 311. 

Keats, John. 263. 

Kingsley, Charles, his Hereward, 116, 
117; his Heroes, 369. 

Kiomidzu of Kyoto, the, 412. 

Kiphng, Rudyard, 215; Hearn's praise 
of his works, 22, 23, 27,71, 110,424; 
quoted, 131,185; his " kingly boys, " 
149; of those favoured by the Gods, 
159; his Rhyme of the Three Sealers, 
191-193, 195; his ballads, 242, 380, 
381; his The Light that Failed, 434; 
the complexities summed up in, 
436. 

Kitzuki, 409, 412, 421. 

Kobe, beauty of, 310, 401; the Sumi- 
tomo Camphor ReGnery at, 318; 
Chinese at, 318,319; Hearn accepts 
offer of place at, 383; hotels at, 392, 
401; Hearn's second stay at, 411. 

Kojiki, the, 246. 

Kojin, 28, 29. 

Kompert, Leopold, 374. 

Kompira, 209. 

Kompira-uchi-machi, 299-303. 

Koteda, Viscount Yasusada, Gov- 
ernor of Izumo, 8, 258. 

Koto Kyomasa, Japanese divinity, 
429. 

Koto-shiro-nushi-no-kami, 13, 156, 
408. 

Kumamoto, contrasted with Izumo, 
xviii; the New Director at, 76, 77; 
Hearn not kindly treated in, 82; 
celebration of a birth in, 123; Hearn 
gets no literary material in, 131; 
not so bad, for material, as Tokyo, 
137; policy in, to conceal things 
from Hearn, 148; his work at the 
school, 165, 166, 168, 169; school 
gossip, 305-307; Hearn thinks of 
resigning his position at, 321, 322; 
on renewal of contract with the 
school, 325, 426; on the abolition 
of English studies at, 325; is a pri- 



son in the bottom of hell, 379; Hom- 
myoji temple near, 429; not much 
chance to study life in, 434. See 
Students. 

Kuroda, Shinto, his Outlines of the 
Mahay ana, 351. 

Kwannon, 87, 209. 

Kyoto, letters of Hearn to Mason, 
from, 391-397; hotel at, 401; obi at, 
402, 405; Hearn disappointed in, 
403; temples at, 403, 404; most 
beautiful at night, 405; industries at, 
405 ; pleases Hearn less than Izumo, 
407; women at, 410. 

Kyushu, school in, 6; nothing to see, 
hear, or feel in, 59; students of, 168, 
169; crowds of, 170. 

Labrunie, Gerard (Gerard de Nerval), 
his Voyage en Orient, 135; became 
mad and committed suicide, 186, 
187; his works, 186, 187; his Filles 
de Feu, 375; the only one who can 
approach Loti, 393. 

Lamb, Charles, xx. 

Lang, Andrew, a line from his trans- 
lation of Homer, 113; his transla- 
tions from Gautier, 135, 203, 204; 
his poetry, stucco and paint, 387. 

Lanier, Sidney, his The Science of 
Verse, 204. 

Latins, lack of spirituality in, 54, 55; 
charm of life among, 119; have not 
developed an industrial centre, 173. 

Law, best students in Japan take to, 
310, 311. 

Lazarus, Emma, her translations of 
Heine, 137. 

Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, 
424. 

Le Due, Leouzon. See Leouzon Le 
Due. 

Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, his Bird 
of Passage, 260; his My Uncle Silas, 
260. 

Legend of Hearn's house, 173-176. 

Legends, 71, 72. 

Leland, Charles Godfrey, on Borrow, 
259, 260. 

LemaJtre, Jules, 156. 

Lenormant, Frangois, 358. 

Leouzon Le Due, Louis Antoine, his 
version of Kaleicala, 354. 

Leroux, Ernest, book on Les Peuples 
Etrangers comme des Anciens Chi- 



INDEX 



463 



nois in his Bihliotheque Orientale, 
390. 

Letters, a charm of, xviii, xix; spon- 
taneous and non-spontaneous, 92. 

Letters of the alphabet, the character 
of, xxxii, 106. 

Letter-writers, xix, xx. 

Life, object of, 14, 15. 

Lisle, Leconte de, 187. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 314. 

Loochooan students, 174. 

Loti, Pierre, pseud. See Viaud. 

Louisiana patois, 7, 376. 

Louys, Pierre, Hearn on the tendency 
to cruelty in his work, xliii, xlvi. 

Lowell, Percival, his The Soul of the 
Far East, 1, 9, 406; his observation 
that the Japanese are the happiest 
people in the world, 10; his Choson, 
11; less intimate with the common 
people of Japan than Hearn, 16, 17; 
Hearn on a book of, 30, 31; story of 
the letter and telegram of, 94-96; 
compared to tropical fruits ripened 
by sun, 237; says the Japanese have 
no individuality, 322, 323; his pa- 
pers on Esoteric Shinto, 348; and 
the canals of Mars, 377. 

Lullaby, a Japanese, 239. 

Macmillans, the, publishers, 33. 

Magazines, American, 34; pay of, 34, 
210. 

Mallock, William Hurrell, morbid, 
55; on Gautier, 197. 

Malory, Sir Thomas, 62. 

Man, the ideal, how figured, 231; 
smallness of all connected with, 
243-245. 

Manila, 20, 21, 24, 70, 119, 320. 

Mars, canals of, 377. 

Martinique, patois of, 7; story of ad- 
venture in, 273. 

Mason, W. B., 208, 328, 336, 351, 353; 
does not like Sacher-Masoch, 125, 
126; always sane, 190; criticizes 
Hearn, 220; a good chess-player, 
246; a beautiful soul, 340; fond 
of movement, 346; an evening at 
his house, 351; much to know such 
a man as, 355, 356; at Otsu with 
Hearn, 356; a remark of, 358, 359; 
Hearn vexed with, 391; letters to, 
401-437; Hearn anxious to meet, 
432. 



Maspero, Gaston Camille Charles, 358, 
394. 

Materialism, 326, 327, 335. 

Mathematicians and poets, 155. 

Maupassant, Guy de, various books 
of, 22; never exceeded his Boule-de- 
Suif, 159; never possessed deep hu- 
man sympathy, 200; his L'Inutile 
Beauts, 367; two studies of insan- 
ity by, 367; his Des Vers, 375. 

Mayoi, the word, 138. 

McDonald, Mitchell, 426. 

Meido, the, 15. 

Memory, 55, 56. 

Mercier, Alfred, on the Louisiana 
patois, 7, 376. 

Merimee, Prosper, 55; Hearn's opin- 
ion of, 135, 136; his Carmen, 199, 
260, 353. 

Metal- work at Kyoto, 405. 

Metres, new, resulting from fusion of 
tongues, 207. See Prosody. 

Miko, cannot rest in her grave, 26; 
dance of, 300, 301, 407, 409, 412. 

Miller, Joaquin, quoted, 161 ; the poor 
and the good in, 161, 369. 

Milton, John, 177, 263. 

Miojunja, the, 13. 

Mionoseki, 12, 13, 16, 407, 408. 

Mirbeau, Octave, his Le Calvaire, 425; 
his sequel to Le Calvaire, 437. 

Missionaries, and Samurai girls, 47; 
Romish, Japanese hatred of, 103, 
104; reaction against, desired, 118; 
the truth not told about, 147; at 
commemoration games, 185; pro- 
perty held by, 190; Hearn's opinion 
of, 190, 392. 

Mistral, Frederic, his Mireille, 194. 

Misumi, 142, 143. 

Modernization, of educated Japan- 
ese, 17; in Japan, Hearn on the 
effects of, 132, 254, 411, 412; illus- 
trated by story of shopkeeper with 
queue, 226, 227. 

Moji, 297, 411-413. 

Monastery and convent, the words, 
22. 

Morality, of Japanese, compared with 
that of Christians, 14; a compara- 
tive, 326; how shown, 344-346; what 
is it? 377-379. 

Motion, cessation of, at 200 degrees 
below zero, 284; the highest forms 
of, are thoughts, 284, 285. 



464 



INDEX 



Munro, — , his Physical Basis of Mind 
in Relation to Evolution, 351. 

Murdoch, James, his Ayame-San, 348. 

Murger, Henri, 374. 

Music, Spanish and Japanese, 20, 21 ; 
and poetry, 204; and emotional 
speech, profound relation between, 
205; of a bon-odori, 422; German 
and Italian, 219. 

Musical, terms, descriptive of colour, 
110, 112; experience, a, 289, 290. 

Musset, Alfred de, his Holla, 199. 

Myths, 389, 390. 

Nagasaki, 140-142, 145, 146, 152, 153, 
310. 

Napier, Mrs., 8. 

Nara, 409-411; Daibutz temple at, 
409, 410; Ningyo, 410. 

Nature, nothing steady in, 171; as 
conceived by Wordsworth, 218, 
219, 227, 228; how we see the beau- 
ties of, 218; Japanese lack of senti- 
ment for, 332, 333; law of, 377-379. 

Needles, worship of, 24. 

Nerval, Gerard de, pseud. See La- 
brunie, Gerard. 

Nesbit, E., pseud. See Bland. 

New Orleans, Hearn's life in, ix. 

Newspapers, women in, 77, 78; of 
Yokohama, 190; Hearn at work on, 
, 391. 

Nightmares, 213. 

Nihilists, 372. 

Nirvana, 284. 

Nishida, Sentaro, 62, 63. 

Nitobe, Inazo, 348. 

Noguchi, Yone, xxviii, xxxi, xxxix, xl, 
li. 

Nominosukune, 9. 

Norse writers, 201. 

Novelists, French and other, 65. 

Novels, English, sexual question in, 
77-80. 

Nukekubi, the belief in, 390. 

Oba, 9. 

Obi, 402, 405. 

Occidental. See Western. 

Ofuda, 71, 72, 409, 421, 428. 

Oki, naval surgeon, 302. 

Oki, Archipelago of, 35, 408, 414-420, 
432. 

Open Ports of the Far East, conven- 
tions of life in, 262,263; Hearn longs 



for, 309, 310; Hearn's judgment on, 
343, 344; everything Japanese ac- 
centuates at, 401. 

Oracles, 348. 

Orient, the, Hearn tires of life in, 97; 
an education, 97; system of morals 
in, cultivates honour, loyalty, un- 
selfishness, 316. 

Oriental literature, 358 

Otokichi, 442-449. 

Otsu, Hearn and Mason at, 356. 

Pascal, Blaise, 164, 177. 

Pater, Walter, on the love of the ro- 
mantics for the exotic, xxviii; his 
Appreciations, 257; his essay on 
Wordsworth, 283, 284. 

Patois, Creole, 7, 376. 

Patti, Adelina, 240. 

Pearson, Charles Henry, 166, 167, 
204, 214; has no pulse, 177. 

Personality, Hearn's, xxvi-xxix; in 
Japanese, 31, 32; nature of, 34, 
35. 

Pessimism, Zola's, the probable re- 
sults of, 159. 

Philistinism, modern, 384, 385. 

Philology, evolution should be ap- 
plied to, 389. 

Physiognomies, English, American, 
and Japanese, 45, 46. 

Placidity, Japanese, 36-38. 

Plato, 287, 384. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, the legend of, v; 
his passion for melodious words, xli. 

Poetry, Hearn on, xlv, 368, 369; the 
highest, a religion, xlvii, 173; of the 
decadents, 307, 308. See also Pros- 
ody. 

Poets, and mathematicians, 155; in- 
ferior, jewels in, 161, 162; great, 
none to-day, 387. 

Polish brigade in the Franco-Prus- 
sian War, story of, 128-130. 

Pope, Alexander, Hearn's views on, 
368, 369, 374. 

Pottery, Rakuzan-yaki, 8. 

Preexistence, Japanese creed of, 15. 

Presents, Japanese, 224, 225. 

Prevost d'Exiles, Antoine Frangois, 
his Manon Lescaut, 199. 

Proselytism in Japan, 15, 47. 

Prosody, 59, 193, 194, 203, 209, 223, 
225, 233, 234. See Rhyme, Rhythm, 
Music. 



INDEX 



465 



Protestant, world, bald and cold, 
215; countries, conventions in, 263. 

Provencal, poetry, 194, 223, 225, 234; 
language, 194. 

Prudhomme, Sully, 195, 210, 242. 

Puritanism of intellect, 396, 397. 

Queue, story of the shopkeeper with, 
226, 227. 

Race feeling, power of, 128-130, 387. 

Races of the West, will give way to 
those of the East, 90, 91, 167. 

Rakuzan-yaki, pottery, 8. 

Reactionary movement in Japan, 
118, 119, 189, 227, 247-249. 

Reade, Henry Charles. 215, 216. 

Reading, Beam's method of, 293, 
294. 

Realism in literature, 135. 

Reichshoffen, story of the cuirassiers 
at, 129, 130. 

Rein, Johannes Justus, 432. 

Religion, the Japanese moulded by, 
iiv; of the Japanese, compared with 
Christianity, 14, 15; of the Ainu, 
25; forms of, 48; and superstition, 
utility of, 68, 69; in Japan, the 
present and the future of, 252-254; 
of Tolstoi, 352, 353; an evolutional 
growth, 391. See Buddhism, Chris- 
tianity. 

Rhyme, alternation of, 193, 194, 206, 
207, 223, 225; the rime riche, 205, 
206; of final syllable, 206; lawful 
and unlawful, in connection with 
accent, 208, 209; feminine, preced- 
ence given to, in French poetry, 
233, 234. 

Rhythm in prose, 59. 

Rice-seeds, magical, 13. 

Rich rhymes, 205, 206. 

Richepin, Jean, the abominations of, 
135. 

Riddle, a Japanese, 201, 202. _ 

Ritter, F. F., his translation of 
Brahma from Djellalleddin Rumi, 
311, 312, 314. 

Riu-Kiu, Normal School of, 174. 

Romanism, 49. 

Romantic School of French literature, 
135, 186-188, 197, 374. 

Rosny, Leon de, 394; his versions of 
Japanese poems, 255. 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 164, 206, 



263; his use of language, xliv; 

quoted, 274; Pater on, 284. 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 164. 
Rumi, Djellalleddin, his Brahma, 311, 

312, 314. 
Ruskin, John, 263, 353, 369. 
Russia, feared by Japan, 118; writers 

of, Hearn's liking for, 200. 
Russians, the coming race, 49, 64. 
Russo-Jewish novels, 94. 

Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Ritter von, 
62, 76; his La Mere de Dieu, 55; not 
liked by Chamberlain and Mason, 
125, 126. 

Saddharuma-Pundarika, the, 314. 

Saigo, 414-416, 432. 

Sainoike, lake of, 414. 

Saint Quentin, his Grammar of the 
Guyane Creole, 7. 

Saintsbury, George, on Proven gal 
poetry, 194; his history of French 
literature, 203; on the origin of al- 
ternating masculine and feminine 
rhymes, 223; on Gautier's La Morte 
Amoureuse, 223, 224; on Baudelaire 
and Zola, 224; on Maupassant's 
Des Vers, 375. 

Sakai, 12, 421. 

Sake-cup, Imperial gift to Hearn, 376, 
383. 

Sakurai, 321, 322. 

Samurai, girls, 47; school, a, 258, 259; 
old ideal, 315. 

Sapporo College, 195, 247. 

Satow, Sir Ernest Mason, 347, 358. 

Scholars, the lighter vein in, 110, 111. 

School, an old samurai, 258, 259. 

Schools, government, in Japan, 225, 
226; in Japan, reactionary move- 
ment in, 247-249. 

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 355. 

Sculpture, Greek, acquaintance with 
anatomy plays no part in, 228, 229. 

Seki-Baba, 265. 

Self-control, Japanese, 45, 46, 247; in 
Japanese poems, 255. 

Senke, Mr., 420-422. 

Senses, Hearn's extraordinary percip- 
iency of, xxxvii. 

Sensitiveness, of Hearn, xxix-xxxviii; 
Japanese, 35-38. 

Sensualism, some, good for human 
nature, 198; artistic and moral, 
value of, 396, 397. 



466 



INDEX 



Sensuousness of Hearn, xl-xlvi. 

Sentiment, the evolution of, 60-52. 

Servian poetry, 357. 

Setsubun, the, 46. 

Sevigne, Madame de, xx. 

Sex-idea, in Japanese love of Nature, 
163. 

Sexual question, in Western and East- 
ern civilizations, 77-81; in its rela- 
tion to the family, 92, 93. 

Shakespeare, William, Story of the 
Three Caskets, composition, 132, 
133. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 218, 263; his 
use of the "rich rhymes," 206. 

Shijo-Gawara, the, 409. 

Shinigami, a Shinto God, 375. 

Shinshu, a sect, 252, 253. 

Shinto, rustic, 26; and Buddhist dei- 
ties, difficult to distinguish between, 
29; Hearn changes his views on, 
128; power in, 128, 130; has native 
nobility, 253; Shinigami, a God, 
375; preserves its past, 404. 

Shosei, 234, 235. 

Shoten, 29. 

Shrines, Japanese, 427. 

Sikh policemen and troopers, 147. 

Silkworms, God of, 412. 

Singing in public baths in Japan, 250. 

Skin, beauty of, 270-272. 

Smell, the sense of, 161. 

Smells, Hearn's sensibility to, xxxvii; 
Japanese, 160, 161, 266, 417. 

Smith, Alexander, his Edinburgh, 172. 

Smith, Arthur Henderson, his Chinese 
Characteristics, 407. 

Snakes in Japan, 428. 

Snow in Japanese art, 56, 57. 

Songs, a Japanese boat-song, 117; 
student, 206; national, 240; Auld 
Lang Syne, 240, 241; military, 241, 
242; a song sung in Martinique, 
273; at the Imperial Wedding, 277, 
278; at festivals in Japan, 327. 

Song-titles, 250. 

Soul, the, 332-335; of animals, 338, 
339, 429-431. 

Spanish, music, 20; language, two of 
Hearn's adventures when learning, 
65, 66. 

Spencer, Herbert, 9, 56, 74, 76, 85, 
248, 326, 352, 391, 424; Hearn a be- 
liever in his theories, Iviii, 55; his 
illustration of eipcestral memory. 



256; gives "particular hell" to 
Dening, 428; on Christian virtues 
found in countries not highly civ- 
ilized, 429. 

Spirituality, lack of, in Latin races, 
54 55. 

Stamps, 286, 291, 292. 

Steamers, Japanese, 139, 140, 297- 
299, 411. 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, on 
Hearn as a romantic personality, v. 

Steinmetz, Karl Friedrich von, 129, 
130. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, xx, xli. 

Students, Japanese, extracts from 
compositions of, 107-109, 132, 133, 
191, 236, 237, 260, 261, 282, 283, 
289, 323, 324, 328-330, 334-336, 
383; lack of spontaneity and imagi- 
nation in, 165, 166, 168; of Kyushu 
and Izumo, 168, 169; Christian, 
action of, at Shinto temple, 169; 
Loochooan, 174; Hearn's, 175; in 
government schools, 225, 226; be- 
nevolence exercised toward, 234- 
236; their celebration of the Impe- 
rial Wedding, 277-282, 284; Hearn 
advises them to follow a course of 
practical science rather than litera- 
ture, 278, 279; Yasukochi Asakichi 
and Kawafuchi, 310, 311; the best 
of them go into law, 311; Hearn's 
conversation with Asakichi, 315- 
318, 326; sacrifices made for, by 
parents, 319; English studies should 
be permitted to most gifted only, 
325; their views of Japan and the 
West, 328-330; of Japanese Naval 
Academy, 423. 

Student-songs, mediaeval, 206. 

Style, simplicity in, 62-64. 

Suffering, necessary to full develop- 
ment of nervous system, 238. 

Sumihito, Arima, 258, 265. 

Superstition, 68, 69, 265, 338. 

Swift, Jonathan, 156. 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 64; his 
use of language, xliv; only reechoes 
himself, 387. 

Symonds, John Addington, 111, 164, 
263; his In the Key of Blue, 112; his 
Renascence, 151; a want of some- 
thing in, 160. 

Sympathy for foreigners in Japan, 
lack of, 359, 



INDEX 



467 



Tadotsu, 299. 

Taiko Maru, the steamer, 139. 
Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe, on North- 
era and Latin temperaments, xlvi; 

his great artistic weakness Hes in 

his judgment, 24; his study of 

Napoleon, 367. 
Takagi, 318, 319. 
Taylor, Bayard, his translation of 

Faust, 137; his Lars, 201; his The 

Song of the Camp, 369. 
Taylor, Jeremy, 305. 
Teachers, of Hearn, 65, 66; in Japan, 

benevolence of, toward students, 

234-236; foreign, in Japan, 247- 

249. See Students. 
Temples, Japanese, 73, 403, 404, 409, 

410, 415, 421, 428, 429. 
Tempo men, 38, 73, 97, 315. 
Tennyson, Alfred, Baron, xlvi, 206; 

his Idylls of the King, artificial, 

over-delicate conservatory work, 

62; quoted, 64, 160; his satire on 

Bulwer Lytton, 173. 
Thackeray, W. M., xx. 
Thomas, — , his grammar of the 

Trinidad patois, 7. 
Thomas, Edith M., 149, 153, 154. 
Thompson, Maurice, his Atalanta's 

Race, 162. 
Thought, the highest form of motion, 

284. 285. 
Tithonus, The Story of, a Composite 

Photograph, 107-109. 
Toda, Mr., 343. 
Tokyo, 341; Hearn at, 342-362; the 

Tokyo Club at. 354. 
Tolstoi, Leo, 55, 347; his religion, 352, 

353. 
Tonsure, symbolic. 376. 
Torio, Viscount, 33. 
Touaregs, 346, 347. 
Touch, Hearn's sensibility to, xxvii. 
Tourgueneff, Ivan Sergyeevitch, 200. 
Tradition, power of, 128-130. 
Transmigration, Japanese creed of, 

15. 
Tropics, the, music in, 20; effects of 

the climate of, 21. 
Tylor, Edward Burnett, 389. 

Ume, Professor, 441. 
Unitarianism, 39. 
University. See Kumamoto. 
Urago, 418-420. 



Urashima, 142-146. 
Uyeda, Akinari, Hearn compared to, 
xxxix. 

Valera, Juan, 22; his Dona Luz, 64- 
66. 

Viaud, Julien (Pierre Loti), 63; his 
Madame Ckrysanlheme, xlii, 1; his 
Le Roman d'un Enfant, 89; his pic- 
tures of Kyoto, 110; his Roman d'un 
Spahl, 115; on his expiring genius, 
126, 436, 437; a judgment upon, 
133, 144; partly of the Romantic 
school, 135; a photograph of, 138; 
reached the perfection of vital Ro- 
mantic prose, 188; his works, 188; 
multitude of words used by, to ex- 
press smallness, 243; his Femmes 
Japonaises, 266-268; his Carmen 
Sylva, 274-276; his La Ville Sainte, 
347, 848, 403; his Au Maroc, 373; 
his genius, 392, 393; his Le Livre 
de la Pilie, etc., 425; his Fantome 
d'Orient, 436, 437. 

Vice and virtue, 53. 

Vows, Japanese, 46, 47. 

Wada, 444. 447-449. 

Wales. Hearn's early life in, 370. 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, indifferent to 
poetical aspects of Nature, 151. 

Warmth, a great vibration, 284. 

Watson, William, xlvi, 173, 177; his 
The Dream of Man, 172, 387; 
Hearn's views on, 386, 387. 

Wedding, the Imperial, 277-282,284. 

Wedding customs in Japan, 44, 45. 

Well God, the, 138. 

Welsh language, 370, 373, 374. 

Wepfner, Margaretha. 348. 

West, its appeal to Hearn, 341. 

West Indian steamer, story of adven- 
ture on, 272, 273. 

West Indies, Hearn's life in, ix, 21; 
climate of, 70, 126. 

Western, civilization, old Japanese 
far in advance of, 32; sexual idea, 
77-81, 163; races, will give way to 
those of the East, 90, 91; civiliza- 
tion, its enormous cost, 167; mind, 
and Japanese, difference between, 
244, 245, 247; mind, thinks in rela- 
tions, 244, 247; dogs, 250; stand- 
point in business and morals, 315- 



INDEX 



318; life, a spiritual and a material 
side to, 325, 326; lands, woman in, 
327; civilization, not so moral as 
some savage nations, 429. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf, his power 
of awakening sympathy in Hearn, 
149. 

Wilde, Oscar, 173. 

Woman, our idea of, spiritualized by 
evolutional philosophy, 221-223, 
231; in Western lands, 327. 

Wood-carving, Japanese, 410. 

Words, the colour, form, character, 
etc., of, xxxi-xxxiii, 105-107, 113; 
on the use of foreign, xxxiii, 105, 
113-117, 124, 125; Ream's sensi- 
tiveness to, xli; their effect on the 
mind, 114-117; Japanese plurals of, 
308. 

Wordsworth, William, 263; not so 
clear as Tennyson, 218; on his an- 
thropomorphism, 218; on the way 
in which he looks at Nature, 218, 
219, 227, 228; ever found London 
beautiful, 264; Pater's essay on, 
283, 284. 



Writing, Hearn 's method of, 42-44, 
57-60. 

Yasugo, 408. 

Yodogawa Maru, the steamer, 297- 

299. 
Yokohama, papers, 190; bay, 310; 

Hearn at, 340-342. 
Yriarte, Charles Emile, on Mediaeval 

Italy, 151; his Un CondoUiere au 

XVI Siecle. 164. 
Yukionna, the, 57. 

Zola, Emile, one cannot read him 
twice, 22; has not so enduring quali- 
ties as older authors, 136; the ideal- 
ist of the Horrible, 156; compared 
with Balzac, 157; the comparative 
value of his books, 158; what good 
will come of his pessimism.' 169; 
Saintsbury on, 224; on religious in- 
fluencesin literature, 263; his L' Ar- 
gent, 425; sees and hears vice as 
Dickens saw and heard eccentri- 
city, 435, 436; stupendous at paint- 
ing battles, 437. 




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